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Fall 2023
Its fall! The new school year is in full swing, and Vev is a motivated 5th grader, while Dey is a perpetually-joking 3rd grader. The last few weeks have included a round of COVID in our home (thankfully only Dr. B and myself were affected), LOTS of homework as seen in pics below,
Daddice’s birthday,
an injured bird that we nursed back to health,
some teeth that fell out,
Pixel’s obsession with this catnip-infused paper bag,
Daddice’s trip to Toronto for a conference and his Uber adventure to find the store from the show “Kim’s Convenience,”
my own travels to Atlanta for a girls’ trip where I did “goat yoga,”
the boys’ day at the football game,
and a chance to see a bommai golu (doll display) at a friend’s house for Navaratri.
It’s been a busy but enjoyable fall so far!
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Westward Ho
The middle part of summer 2023 was spent at home with a flurry of visits from relatives, and then about 4 weeks of exciting summer day camps on cool subjects like video production, robotics, and snorkeling. August arrived, and it was time for family vacay #2: a trip to Phoenix, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon.
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June 2023 - Trip to Boston
I have about 4-5 months of updates. Gonna keep it pic-heavy and text-light.
So! The last school year ended on June 8, 2023. Our summer kicked off with a family trip to Boston, and a chance to visit some of our old spots, recreate old pics, and also do historical sightseeing and stuff.
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Phun with Photos, continued
There’s “cat people,” and then there are CAT PEOPLE :)
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Phun with Photos…and Phungus…and Phelines!
The kids and I have been messing around a lot with photos using the app Procreate, which I often use to design things to make on my Cricut. I started a video course on how to use all of Procreate’s tools and features on Udemy a few years ago - I never did finish the course, and I should prob go back and watch the portions I completed just for review - but even using the app near daily for a few years now has made me comfortable enough to tinker around and try to figure things out.
So the other day, we woke up in the morning and discovered this BEAUTIFUL, almost perfect mushroom growing in the landscaping right outside our garage:
Don’t ask me why, but I was completely enraptured with this thing. Maybe it’s bc it sprung up overnight almost like magic, or bc of its perfect shape, or bc of the way the pretty morning sunlight hit it - but I dropped down in the ground and shot about a dozen pictures of the thing. I had this vision of having a little fun with it, and making some creative photo edits that would give the kids a laugh. And so I did!
I then honored a request from Vev to do a Pixel-centered edit:
Hehe….some good, clean, nearly-free fun!
Not nearly as free (in fact, it’s sort of expensive)…. but the kids finished school last week! (Oops, that deserves a photo of its own) and started a five-day summer camp at a place called iCode in our neighborhood - it’s a center that teaches kids all about different aspects of coding, computer programming, and the use of various softwares for web development, digital design, video and audio creation/production, and other techy topics like robotics, drone aviation, game development, etc. I signed both Vev and Dey up for a five-day camp focused on 2D and 3D digital design. They seem to love drawing and painting, and also futzing around with digital photos - so I thought they might enjoy it. Day 1 got off to a good start! Here are some pics, as well as photos from iCode’s social media:
Phun for the entire phamily :)
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My Trusty Steed
I wish that my blog had more viewers so that I could parlay this post into some sort of product-placement deal, and make a ton of money on a car brand sponsorship. But alas, I don’t have viewers, and even more alas - this post probably isn’t the type of thing that car brands would go for anyway, because it is at best boring, and at worst, extremely gross. But regardless - today’s post is in appreciation of my trusty steed, my vehicle of the last 6+ years - my 2017 Acura MDX hybrid.
Memorial Day weekend 2023 saw our family taking off on a road trip to historic St. Augustine, Florida. We looked forward to the opportunity to visit some famous sites that Vev in particular had been learning about in history class at school all year, such as the Castillo de San Marcos, the Old Spanish Military Hospital Museum, and the Timucua Native Tribe Village and the Fountain of Youth - and we did have a great time. In fact, Vev was proud to serve as our unofficial tour guide all weekend, bringing his Social Studies notebook from school along and reading his notes to us everywhere. It was delightful to see him so excited to share his work with us!
And in its typical reliable fashion - my car got us there and back safely and comfortably. HOWEVER - poor Elephanta (yes, that’s her name, and it’s been her name since she was first brought into the family) did not go unscathed on this road trip. Vev had his very first and rather unpleasant experience with carsickness on our drive up to St. Augustine, and he managed to BARF all over the entire backseat of the car. I suppose I should count us all grateful and fortunate that in over 10 years of parenting, we haven’t had any prior road-barfs to speak of. But Vev more than made up for it this time. It was epic. It was the barfage of a 250-lb grown man who had been shotgunning a case of Budweiser. I couldn’t believe so much came out of such a small person. Sheesh. And this happened on our way TO our vacation, not on our way home - which presented some logistical challenges about the cleanup process. Ugh ugh ugh.
So - immediately after the barfage, Dr. Spouse pulled over in the shoulder of the highway, as one does, so we could attend to the barfing child and also give some consolation to the non-barfing but completely-grossed-out other child…. Then we did the good ol’ fashioned “cleaning up as best we can on the shoulder of an interstate, using only what we have in the car, which won’t be enough at all.” UNPLEASANT…. then we managed to get to our destination and give ourselves a little mental break from everything. Fortunately, Vev’s condition seemed to be a true case of carsickness, bc he was fine once we reached the hotel and even had a pretty big appetite for dinner that evening. I really am grateful for that - that it wasn’t some viral illness that would plague the rest of our trip.
Still…. I had trouble falling asleep that night, and woke up early the next day, simply bc of anxiety about how gross the car was going to smell. I started Googling car washes, detailing services, and all kinds of other things, knowing that we’d have to find a way to clean the car better if we were going to survive driving around in it the rest of our trip. It was eventually decided that Dr. Spouse would take the kids to the pool and beach, and I would take off on my own and go….wherever I needed to go to fix this mess.
So this was THEIR Day 1 of vacation:
And this…. Was mine. Womp womp.
My first order of business after my Walmart shopping spree was to completely COAT the backseat of my car in a thick layer of baking soda, to try and absorb as much grossness and smell as possible (upper left). I seriously dumped an ENTIRE 2-lb. box of baking soda back there, and rubbed it into the mats with my hands inside of plastic bags. Then I drove to get the coins, then onward to the gas station, where I proceeded to vacuum out all of the baking soda entirely. Just doing this helped a lot with the smell. While vacuuming, I removed ALL the mats and the booster seat cover, and mixed up several bottles of my very own anti-vomit Molotov cocktails - half water bottles with half white vinegar, a generous glooping of Dawn dish soap, and a few shot glasses’ worth of this pet stain remover stuff that I’ve used before on cat puke, and that works really well (upper right). I let all that sit and saturate while I vacuumed (Lower left), then once I was done, I pulled into the wash bay and blasted them all with high-pressure soapy water as best I could. Then I rinsed and did my best to get it all to drop-dry in the sun (lower right). I didn’t even wash the interior of the car, just the mats. But I did buy wipes for the interior which I used furiously on every single surface.
I was a HOT, sweaty, wet, disgusting mess at the end of this process, which took like three hours…. In the end, the car was tolerable enough for the rest of our vacation. Not at all perfect, not by a long shot - but tolerable. I finished off with these little car vent wrap deodorizers that I bought at Walmart which the entire family claimed helped a lot (personally, I hate artificial fragrances and to me it was actually worse than nothing at all, but I took one for the team). But again, the car was far from back to its old self, ans I knew I’d be looking forward to more hard labor of cleaning my car once we got home.
Tuesday morning, the kids went to school, and I was back at it again - this time pouring literal buckets of rug shampoo INTO the cabin if my car, scrubbing with a brush, then using our wet vac to suck it all out:
I then did something that surprised even myself…. TMI, but Vev had managed to puke directly INTO the rear A/C vents of the car! And I knew he had, right from the start, but on the road I didn’t have the tools to deal with it. Well back at home, it was time to deal with it. So… I did this:
Yep. I went on YouTube, and I taught myself to disassemble, clean, and reassemble my car’s A/C! I even made this tutorial video for anyone else out there who might ever need to clean their Acura MDX’s rear A/C.
I also changed my cabin air filters! Maaaan, the Acura dealership charges me a stupid amount of money to do this during annual service visits. But I bought the filters online and did it myself in less than 5 minutes for only $19. I couldn’t believe how easy it was!
Top: old filter, which was so dirty that it even had tiny leaves and rocks sucked into it! Bottom: new filter.
Last but not least - k out the booster seat covers and the rear cloth mat into my washing machine, and washed them on heavy duty with lots of detergent. Then I let them dry in the sun.
Anyway. After AAAAAALL of these efforts, which collectively took about 7 hours of my life PLUS the measures of cleaning/changing the A/C filters - I am proud to say, Elephanta was BACK TO HER OLD SELF. Hallelujah!!! Not only that - she was sparkling clean!!!
….for about a week. Then this morning, I took her to the garden center for our annual summer refresh of the butterfly garden. And…..
….now, she is once again covered in soil and plant crud. Sigh. My trusty steed! She’s so trusty, we just can’t keep her clean for long.
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The Super
Im so happy and relieve that both we, and Ajima and Thatha, are settled into our new-to-us homes. Of course, being settled in hasn’t meant that all house-related work is over. Maintaining a home can sometimes feel like a job in itself - not only all the cleaning and chores, but also the handyman visits, trips to home improvement stores to buy stuff, and replacing/repairing things as needed. This weekend, I’ve felt like the Super of our two houses, fixing issues and overseeing work.
A month ago, I accompanied Ajima and Thatha to Home Depot to shop for new kitchen appliances. The old microwave in their house worked fine, except that the handle had fallen off, and Ajima had cleverly rigged it back up again…with a rope of medical tape from their first aid cabinet.
Yep…. Not the classiest look. She was also interested in replacing their gargantuan side-by-side refrigerator and freezer with a more modern and functional French-door style fridge and undercounted freezer drawer - better for the layout of their kitchen, and her mobility issues. I figured at that point, we also just get them a new range/oven and dishwasher, so everything would match and we could take advantage of “buy 3 get one free” sales.
We ordered everything at the end of April, but the delivery and install date happened to be today, and Ajima and Thatha had a planned trip to DC to visit my sister Rithers and her kids H2O and NiNi…so I told them never to fear, their Super would personally attend to the appliance situation at their home. And so I did. It took a few hours of me sitting around, with a little bit of floor sweeping, fridge shelf cleaning, and replacement of refrigerated items once the time came - but in the end, I think their newly refreshed kitchen is looking rather spiffy and more functional now!
Back at my own home front - an unwelcome issue awaited me as I pulled into the driveway right after helping Ajima and Thatha’s home improvement. I got out of the car to discover this unwelcome sight, with an accompanying (PIERCING) sound:
This is the control box to our sewage liftgate pump. What is a sewage liftgate pump? Yeah, a short 2-ish years ago, I had no idea either. I had to do a lot of reading and educating myself when we bought this house. Basically, it’s a system where the house has its sewage line that ordinarily connects to a city sewer line, but here, the home’s sewer line goes down to a holding tank at a deeper level than where the city sewer line runs….then, the liftgate pump lifts the wastewater up within that holding tank to an elevation where it can appropriately connect to the city sewer line. Its like, if a regular house with a city sewer line and a house with a septic tank had a baby, it would be a sewer liftgate system. It’s like an elevator for poop-water. Gross. And weird. But true. Here, a picture (don’t worry, it’s just a drawing schematic, not an actual picture).
Note: this is not my original artwork; I’ve shamelessly stolen it from the website of some sewer liftgate servicer in an entirely different part of the country than where I live. I’ve left their business name and info on the image as a way of citing them…and thanking them for doing a job that I would never want to do in a zillion years.
Anyway. So - I call the utility company, and they say most likely, our pump is failing, and they put me on the list as first appointment for replacement in the morning. In the meantime, they caution, please be mindful of your water usage, take short showers, and maybe don’t do laundry today. And call if our toilets simply stop flushing at any point.
Ummm. That’s absolutely not reassuring, I tell them - but they insist that there is usually a lot of reserve in the tank so showering/toilet usage and ordinary water usage for washing hands, etc should be okay. I am nervous, but I also do appreciate that they’re giving me first appointment. So I thank them and hang up.
And then…..I decide that as payment for my Super services rendered….we are gonna go right back to Ajima and Thatha’s house tonight for our showers.
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Anddddd..... on fur.
Ah. One last thing. Actually, two last things. I feel like reporting on several hairy creatures.
Firstly, our family pets. Top pic is Pixel, who will be turning 15 (I think?!) this year, Inshallah. She is in good health and spirits still, and has adjusted well to our new home - her FIFTH while with us. Pixel is ornery and has a lot of attitude, but that has always been the case with her. We love her to pieces.
Bottom pic is Kali, the cat who adopted us! Kali, as you might recall, was a resident of our house long before we ever purchased it, and has managed to stick around through all the chaos and mess of construction. She basically lives in our garage, driveway, and outside yards, and she is very much a loyal part of the family. She even brings us dead rats and snakes sometimes, which is.... so thoughtful of her? I mean, I think she thinks she's giving us presents. Whatever. She means well. She is a very sweet and affectionate cat.
And then one more hairy creature....
Yep, ME! Check it out - I grew my hair out. After about a decade of the pixie cut, I thought I might try to make a change. To be honest, I'm not loving it AT ALL, and I may very well chop it all off again at some point. But here it is. Top left: (I think) Dec 2021. Bottom left: Jan 2022). Top right: maaayybe June 2022? I forget. Then middle right: Jan 2023. And finally bottom right: April 2023.
Again, don't get attached. I'm already getting cranky about my hair sticking to my neck in this godforsaken Florida humidity. I swear I want to take a set of clippers to my head one of these days.
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And we're back... to 2023
BACK TO THE PRESENT. I have managed to catch my blog up with the goings-on from 2021-2022, and I now find myself in the present year. Guys. I'm proud of myself.
Top row plus bottom left: We spent the first week of January (the 2nd week of the kids' holiday break from school) on a little road trip to Legoland, and then Cape Canaveral. We hadn't been to either before, despite living in Florida for almost 9 years. Feel like this was an important achievement as Floridians.
Bottom middle: Vev turned TEN! Can you believe that insanity?!!!! Remember when he was JUST BORN, or when he was a TINY BABY?! I know, so nuts. Our big activity to celebrate Year Ten was a trip to.... an abandoned railroad track. But not just any abandoned railroad track! This was an abandoned railroad track that I scouted out and pored over the internet to find... because apparently, its the favorite spot of official Planespotters to take photos of "heavies," aka large-body jumbo jets, that land into Miami International Airport. We went planespotting! Our first of many planespotting jaunts since. Vev was freaking delighted. #winning
Bottom right: February 2023. Dr. Spouse and I ran the Publix A1A race - this time, opting for the 4-miler in support of the American Cancer Society, and channeling positive vibes to two special people in our lives who at the time, were battling aggressive cancers. Sadly, in the weeks since then, we have lost both of them :( but this highlights the importance of the ACS's work. In the weeks since this race, I've been dealing with some nagging chronic pain and arthritis.... what else is new.
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March 2023: The kids' spring break week = family vacation to Costa Rica! Dr. Spouse and I had done a weeklong trip to CR in 2008, but this was our first time as a family unit. We spent our time in Monteverde exploring mountaintop rainforests, and then Arenal/La Fortuna exploring the forests, hot springs, and land surrounding the Arenal volcano. It was a blast. Also, our kids are REALLY good sports about hiking and outdoor adventures. They are at the most awesome, awesome ages right now, and I couldn't be more freaking delighted.
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And now, I bring you to the last few weeks, from March-May 2023.
Top left and top right: I spent most of March and April quilting up a storm. I made two beautiful (if I do say so myself) quilts for the kids rooms with fabrics that I purchased from Etsy in December 2021 while living in the apartment, that I dropped entirely too much money on, but that were all chosen carefully to compliment the color scheme of their rooms/rugs that I just KNEW I'd be putting in there once we moved in. These quilts weren't just quilts: they were sort of a love letter to the labor and waiting that we had put into this house of ours. I enjoyed making them! Also, I chose patterns that involved me learning new skills. Can talk more about that later, but it was kind of a "thing" for me.
Middle left: American Heart Association Heart Ball. Dr. Spouse is on the board of the local chapter of the AHA, so he was sort of obligated to make an appearance. I recycled the same dress I wore to the 2016 ball, lol.
Middle right: I volunteered for several days at the kids' school's Scholastic Book Fair. I used to do this at their old school too - I really love it. Its fun to help the kids pick out new and interesting books to read! Bonus: I got to take funny pics trolling Florida governor Ron Desantis' dumbass policies on critical race theory and anti-wokeness. Eat shit, Ron Desantis! :) love ya haha jk jk.
Bottom row: May 2023 has meant some fun adult time! No, not that kind of adult time. I'm talking about a few occasions to reconnect with old friends, on our own and without kids in tow. I had a LONG awaited and much, MUCH enjoyed weekend with my college girlfriends - they all flew down to my neck of the woods, and we rented a beautiful and HUGE mansion from a homesharing site and had a blast together. Dr. Spouse did a similar thing the very next weekend with two of his medical school buddies. Here's to nurturing old friendships - the ones that have gotten us through all kinds of things in life so far.
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And, now I'm up to date with our lives. Whee! I know this might sound dumb, but I feel like a weight is off my shoulders. I have had this blog going since sometime in 2010, I think, and although I've had long blocks of time where I haven't kept it up, its never far from my mind. I love that its a chronicle of my life over many years and many changes. I hope to keep it going. Whether you are new here or you've followed me awhile, whether you even exist or not - - thanks for reading.
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Here comes 2022
Alright, I am now gonna launch into 2022! A word of caution: clearly, I've been absent from the blogosphere for ages, because just as I am always striving to do, and is evidenced by my blog title - Tumblr has evolved as well. I think it has become optimized for mobile, which is wonderful, except that I am a wordy person and can type faster on a laptop than on my phone or iPad, so I am somewhat resigned to navigating between computer and mobile devices to post, and that results in some funky formatting and occasional moments of panic when I think my draft has disappeared into the ether.... so kindly oblige my probably weird formatting problems here. This may very well become a "Here comes 2022, Part 1" if I suddenly panic that my draft is about to be eaten, and I decide to post mid-thought process. Okay, here I go.
We begin in January 2022 with a surprise! At this point, we have owned a new house for about a year and have been renovating it painstakingly all along - but seemingly in a flash, Ajima and Thatha have made the decision to put their New Orleans home on the market, and purchase a new house in Florida, only five minutes away from us. HALLELUJAH! Thatha has at long last made the decision to retire, after an illustrious career as a physician in the New Orleans area for the last 45+ years. It's a huge life change for them, but we couldn't be happier to have them close by. Top left and top middle photos show the housewarming puja that we hold in their new home in January.
Top right - a photo of Dey with yet another lost tooth. The piggybank grows.
Middle left and middle middle - Vev's. 9th birthday! We take a trip to Butterfly World, about 45 minutes north of our hometown. We enjoy a full day of beautiful butterflies, hummingbirds, lorikeets, and other birds that subsist on the nectar of tropical flowers. Its delightful!
Middle right - homeschooling continues through a VERY busy and sometimes chaotic life of renovating a house. We sometimes find ourselves doing homeschool in the backyard of the construction zone, because Mommy has to simultaneously be both teacher and construction site foreman, receiving deliveries or awaiting workers to give them instructions. Sigh.
Bottom row: FEBRUARY 2022. The week we have been waiting for. After exactly one year and one day since we last packed up, shipped out, and moved into our temp housing - IT IS TIME. We are moving into the new house!!!! New house is about 90-95% finished. Note that it is not 100% finished. But we don't care. We are moving in. We box up the contents of our apartment, and ship out to bigger and brighter pastures, which happily for Dr. Spouse, has a massive freezer to house all his precious Trader Joe's frozen meals.
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Top left and top middle: We are SOOOO excited for February 26, 2022. This is the day! We are moving into our new house!!!! Day 1 is a whirlwind of activity. It is sweaty, exhausting, and wonderful. Also, the floors of the house are absolutely filthy because like I said above, construction is not 100% done yet, and we need to do a LOT of deep cleaning over the next few weeks. Cue me renting this mammoth industrial floor scrubber machine from Home Depot, and getting real sexy in my sneakers and gym shorts as I lug this behemoth back and forth across the floors for hours (top right).
The weeks to come are no less busy. We juggle settling into our new home with also sharing space with construction workers, who continue coming/going for a long while (suboptimal). We try to put on smiling faces and just endure, because we know it will be worth it in the end. We distract ourselves with a few small but happy social occasions, such as Holi (bottom left), and with BIGGER, more life-altering occasions, such as Ajima and Thatha's big move into their own new house (bottom middle and bottom right). It feels like deja vu, as we restart the process of unpacking boxes, settling all their personal items, throwing out stuff, etc. By the end of April, I decide that if I never, ever, ever again have to unpack and flatten a cardboard box, it'll be too soon....... its absolutely, bone-crushingly exhausting. But, we get it done, and we're all on our way to new homes and new lives.
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As we move into May and June 2022, life finally begins to feel less like a marathon of physical labor, and more like an enjoyable cruise. Thank goodness, because my poor legs couldn't take much more.
I set to the task of home decor, which is SUPER fun. Cue me learning how to make massive wall decals with my Cricut, so I can give Vev the vintage PanAm themed room he has wanted forever, and Dey the space/rocket themed room he is hoping for (Top left, top middle). We also get started with our new butterfly garden in the backyard (top right), and we also house a few in our indoor mesh habitat just for fun (bottom right).
May is Stroke Awareness Month, and Dr. Spouse decided that this would be the year that the entire family would attend the annual event he hosts at his hospital system to celebrate survivors of stroke and their care providers (middle left).
Summer 2021 started off strong with a trip to Captiva Island (middle middle), and then the kids' enrollment in an exciting summer camp focused on Drones. The camp had a drone obstacle course competition at the end which was fun to watch (middle right).
June 2021 marked the END of our long but amazing homeschooling journey! This was a VERY bittersweet milestone for me, but obviously a great accomplishment and point of pride for our entire family. We decided to mark the occasion with a bang - we took a full-blown, fully-planned-out, curriculum-guided trip to Washington DC for a week of visiting national monuments and historic landmarks, museums, the whole caboodle. (bottom left and bottom middle) It was SO much fun!
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Although we loved many parts of our DC trip, I think our visit to the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Museum of Air and Space in Chantilly, Virginia, was especially meaningful. We had visited this museum in 2017 when the kids were much younger, so we had fun re-staging some of our favorite photos again (top let and top middle).
July 2022 brought Ajima and Thatha's 50th wedding anniversary! I did my best to throw them a small family party at home, complete with a traditional exchange of flower malas (garlands) made on my Cricut.
Our next adventure came in July 2022 with a family trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands (middle left and middle middle) - lots of beach time, delicious dining, and relaxation. August was mostly spent at home.
September, and a whole lot of new experiences! The kids began a new school year in public school - WOOT! Huge milestone. I'll add a picture of this in a second.
Labor Day weekend: Dr. Spouse and I left the kids with the grandparents and travelled alone to Houston for a friend's wedding (middle left).
Bottom right: We returned home to an exciting butterfly moment - we found our very first Queen Monarchs in our yard (special sub-species of butterfly).
Bottom middle: October 2022 - for the first time in eons, the kids opted for readymade costumes off of Amazon - I thought I"d be a little sad not to make our costumes by hand as I've done in years past, but to be honest, after a busy year of moving and decorating, I think I was secretly relieved :) But not to completely ignore my crafting hobbies - I was invited to Vev's classroom to help lead a fall craft: 3D paper pumpkins and pony bead calico corn (bottom right).
Customary First Day of School photo!
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Top left and middle: on October 29th, 2022, we engaged in a "first" - our first family 5K! Of course, Dr. Spouse and I have run many road races together, but this is the first time we had the kids get involved. It was a perfect race for them too - it was called the Runway 5K, and it took place on the actual runways of the Miami International Airport. For the aviation enthusiasts among us, this was a HUGE thrill. I made customized airline logo t-shirts for us to wear.
Top right and middle left: we have had the good fortune of hosting many of our extended family members in our new house already, even in the short time we've lived here. Thanksgiving 2022 was awesome, as my extended maternal family joined us!!!! It was really great to have my cousin Needs and her two daughters here so that the kids could all bond and have some cousin time. Love :)
Middle middle: Dr. Spouse and I ran a road race in December, and I got my wonderful rainbow at the end - miss you, Uncle Marley. Thanks for showing up and cheering me on.
Middle right: Dey's 8th birthday! Another breaking of our family's traditions this year, as we've normally either had birthday parties at home, or just done small-scale family-only celebrations of birthdays. But seeing as he was in a new school with new friends, we decided to throw a birthday party at an outside venue where he could have school friends join in. So we chose this kids' coding and robotics facility, where teachers/counselors could guide the kids in several coding and robotic games, and then we could just have cake and snacks, and at the end just walk away without any cleanup. It was a game-changer, and I have no idea why I haven't done this before. Outsourcing, y'all.
Bottom left: our first Christmas in our new home! Peace and happiness.
Bottom middle and bottom right: We threw a GIANT (to us) New Years party with several local friends/families invited. Lots of booze, noise, laughter, karaoke, fireworks..... I think one of the visions Dr. Spouse and I had throughout our entire long, expesnive, and painful renovation was the goal of having a peaceful and family-oriented Christmas, followed by a massive, raucous party for New Years with our friends. We checked our boxes off. The 2022 holiday season was everything we wanted and more.
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And with that, we enter 2023! WOOT!
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Best of 2021
Hello!!!!! The year is 2023. Do people even blog anymore? I don't even know! So, I am aware I royally ghosted on my own beloved blog sometime around February 2021. This was never intentional. As per my last post, we had just moved out of our family home of about 6 years into a cozy apartment, and were on our way to a great adventure in gut-renovating a new-to-us home in a new area of South Florida. Life was full, and about to get even fuller. I am going to attempt to catch up on about 2.5 years of our family's lives in this post, and the following two. Here goes. *rolling up sleeves*
So we left off in February 2021, shortly after moving into our short-term apartment (ha! Short term. We thought we would be there for about 6 months.... little did we know, it would actually wind up being exactly one year and one week. Renovations are full of unexpected surprises - read: delays. Especially during a pandemic. But I digress.
Here, pictures. As seen in top left, we spent many days visiting our new house, and brainstorming ideas for our renovation - often using blue painters' tape to mark off, say, where we wanted our new countertop and sink to be. We managed to take a few memorable vacations between April-May 2021, including Sanibel Island (top middle) and the Atlantis resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas (top right). The renovation continued all along with exciting moments such as when a giant cement truck piped hundreds of gallons into the house as we watched (middle left). In May, we visited New Orleans to attend a once-in-a-lifetime event: the consecration of a new Hindu temple (middle middle). This was the culmination of a lifetime of work by my parents and their community of Indian Americans in New Orleans - we were very proud! June brought another milepost in our lives - our little Day graduated (homeschool) Kindergarten, and we marked the occasion with a graduation ceremony at home (middle right). Yes, by the way - we were homeschooling throughout ALL of the above experiences.
July brought a chance to visit Ba and Dadu in North Carolina, and short road trip to Asheville to visit the Biltmore Estate (bottom left). Once back in Florida, I worked on a quilt for a friend's daughter - a QUEEN sized quilt, the largest project I've ever taken on! (bottom middle). We closed out summer with a fabulous August getaway to the Florida Keys with several of our local friends and their children (bottom right).
***
Once back from the Keys, we had a few days' break before.... we started the new school year! (top left) Our intention had been to enroll the kids in the local public school for which we are zoned, and for which we had gone through a LOT of hell and high-water to move our family to this new neighborhood.... but, alas, late summer 2021 brought along the Delta Variant of Covid. The kids hadn't yet been vaccinated at this point (the FDA hadn't yet approved the vaccine for children under 12 years of age). So literally 72 hours before the first day of school, we pulled the Eject Handle and reverted to a homeschooling plan. Happily, most family members were a-okay with this, as we'd loved the experience the previous year! This school year brought some new ideas to our homeschooling experience, including designing meals around some of our favorite books (top middle), visits to the public library (top right), and a MARVELOUS homeschooling virtual co-op that met monthly on Zoom with 10 new friends from around the country, focused on the topic of World Religions (middle middle).
We continued visiting our mid-construction house each evening to check on progress (middle left). We also spent time at our house on many other occasions, including celebrating our first Halloween there! (middle right). As per tradition in our family, I hand-made all our costumes! We had done an engaging History unit on ancient Egyptian culture, and this year, we chose to continue that inquiry into the design and fabrication of our costumes! I dressed as Cleopatra, Vev was Tutankhamun, Dey chose to portray Sebek (a half-man, half-crocodile god), and Dr. Spouse played Anubis (half-man, half-wolf lord of the underworld).
WOOT! Sometime in October or November 2021, the kids at long last got their first dose Covid vaccine. I got my booster as well on the same day. We felt like superheroes! (bottom left).
December brought several memorable occasions, such as Dey’s 7th birthday, which we celebrated with a visit to a local antique car museum (bottom middle). We also enjoyed a planned cousin reunion for Christmas in New Orleans - our LAST Christmas ever at Ajima and Thatha’s old house, as it would turn out — because big changes were underway…….
That concludes the year 2021 in our family’s history! It was a good year. In the next post, I’ll give a Greatest Hits of 2022 - a momentous year of change for one and all.
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The weeks post-moving - second part.
Within days, it was time to try and get back to a normal routine of sorts... which for us, has meant getting right back to homeschooling.
But it also has meant establishing new and enjoyable routines! Such as visiting our new house each and every evening (and to hang out with old friend Boney the Skeleton, who lives in our garage now!)....
We go partly to see how the progress is going on the remodel....
...but also to attend to our NEW PETS!!! Err, yes, have I mentioned that we have new pets?! So, short version of the story is - the prior occupants of our new house had these two feral cats that they sort of developed a soft spot for, and they've been feeding and caring for them for YEARS (*caring for them included getting them fixed, thank God). One of them was actually born in the back yard, and has lived there all its life. So, when we bought the place, they kind of timidly brought up the question of whether we would be willing or able to keep up the relationship, of course stammering that they knew we were under no obligation and that they'd understand if we couldn't. But boy, these cats must have done something good in their past lives - because as you know, we are a CAT FAMILY, and when we heard the backstory on these critters, of course we couldn't help but dive right in and take the Kitty Kibble Baton.
Sooo..... Presenting our family's newest members, and the beneficiaries of nightly visits to replenish the kibble bowls.... here we have Kali:
and, Nightshade!
We are making friends with Kali fairly quickly. Nightshade is a little more shy and elusive. But hopefully, we'll see some progress in that relationship as time goes on.
Other new routines - for now. I am sure there'll be a lot of change and progress in this department. But - the last few weeks have meant a TON of driving around town and appointments in the name of picking out materials and details for our house remodel. We've been to the tile showroom....
The plumbing fixture showroom.....
We've received freight shipments of cool things like potties and sinks.....
And we have had many more site visits, including cabinet showrooms, door showrooms, you name it.
As we reached the one-month mark of our move from the old house, we were all getting a little overwhelmed with all the house-related showroom visits and running around. But thankfully, we had an exciting diversion to look forward to. Both Dr. Spouse and I had finally been vaccinated against COVID-19 at this point..... so we were able to book tickets to go visit Ajima and Thatha in New Orleans!
We took homeschool materials with us, and planned a trip where Dr. Spouse would fly out with us and hang for 6 days, then return home to go back on call for work, while the kids and I stayed another 7 days. Woohoo!!!!!!
At the time of this blog post, we are still here in New Orleans, stuffing our faces with Ajima's cooking and having a great time with some grandparental company. A very happy and welcome circumstances to find ourselves in, after a LONG month of change and hectic activity!!!!
Well, that's it for now. In my next post, I'm going to be sharing some exciting new endeavors that I've got going on. For now - take care and stay safe! And wish me luck not getting fat on all the good food in New Orleans :)
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The weeks post-moving - first part.
(Preface: OHHHH Tumblr, you bastard. You ate yet another post that I was writing. That's the worst!!! Sometimes you really piss me off >:(
So, we left off on the night after our giant triple-decker move out of our old house, and into our temporary apartment, our storage units, and sorta-kinda into the backyard of our new, soon-to-be-a-construction-zone house. We'd wearily checked into the motel the night after the move, and when we woke up the next morning, we had the big task of going back to the old house and cleaning up a little for the new owners, before heading back up to our apartment and starting the unpacking and settling-in process. And what a daunting prospect that was, because every inch of the cozy apartment was COVERED in boxes and bags of our crap....
Fortunately, we were able to get settled in in about 2 days - honestly, because we had no choice. Moving out of a spacious house and into an apartment meant that we just had SOOO much stuff, and unless we found a place for each thing to "live," we wouldn't be able to walk around freely!
The next week or so was spent with a few moments of levity, such as this evening, where I had to go full-on Steve Irwin "Crocodile Hunter" to chase down and capture a stowaway lizard, who'd been hiding in my houseplant...
We also had moments of solidarity, when we realized we'd be making repeat trips to the storage unit together to stash away our flattened moving boxes so that we could move right back out of the apartment once our remodeling was done....
We had moments of sheer exhaustion, where the hecticness of the last few weeks caught up with us, and we just needed to collapse in a nap....
And then, we frankly (and unsurprisingly) had moments of big emotions, as we processed all the change in our lives. As we contemplated - and mourned for - the goodbyes we'd had to say to our family's home of six years. A home that we lived in, and loved, and a home that for the most part was the only home that half of our family members really could remember, because they were so young when we first moved in.
We did our best to get through all of this together, with grace and empathy and lots of hugs. And cookies.
More in part 2.... darn limit on photos per post. I'm a little disgruntled with the blog technicalities today.
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The Move.
So, I left off at the point of our Rapid, 2-week Moving Blitz where I was positively swimming in color-coded, numbered cardboard boxes of our worldly possessions. By day 5 or 6 of packing stuff up, the house and I were looking fairly rough....
And it only got more serious...
Somehow over the course of the week, I found that I was sporting some new accessories: the Sharpie Marker necklace and the packing tape bracelet. I was a veritable hoarder of both markers and tape, since I was doing the majority of the boxing up and labeling.
Finally, moving day was upon us! We spent a LOT of time talking with the kids, preparing them for this day, describing the way that things would go, the sights and sounds they'd be experiencing, etc. but I suppose nothing can really prepare a kid for the wonder and amazement, and also the emotions, of the experience of moving out of the only house you really remember. The day of, the kids seemed totally awestruck and impressed with the movers' huge trucks, fancy bubble-wrapping contraptions, and their general strength and efficiency. The only pictures I even have of the day are actually from the kids' iPads, and a few from Dr. Spouse - I was positively FRANTIC this day with last-minute packing and arrangements, but my kids were phenomenal at chronicling the events of the day by photographing with their iPads. I'm so glad they did.
It was surreal watching our house of the last six years get emptied out so quickly of all its contents, leaving behind only vast, empty rooms filled with dust bunnies and memories. I think all of us by default went into compartmentalizing mode on this day, focusing on the bajillions of tasks at hand, rather than the emotions that we all obviously had going on. Obviously, since that day, we've all had our different feelings and moments. But yeah. Moving day is always kind of its own weird animal.
Within a few short hours, the trucks were loaded, and we were off to Drop-off Site #1: our new house backyard, where our patio table and chairs, and my copious heavy planters and potted plants were delivered by our awesome team of movers. Then it was off to Drop-off Site #2: our home for now, the apartment.
I won't lie. I had prepared as much as I thought I could for the prospect of living temporarily in a much smaller home. I'd put a TON of things in storage, and put careful thought into what we'd bring to the apartment in order to be comfortable and have all we needed, while not overcrowding and cluttering the space and making us all feel suffocated with "stuff." I feel like I thought, and thought, and overthought this issue. But despite that - on moving day, I was feeling panicked that perhaps I hadn't quite done enough. And that perhaps, we would indeed be drowning in stuff. It was daunting to see the precious square footage overrun by all our crap. To fast-forward a bit, and I'll have pics of this soon - the unpacking process for the apartment happened VERY quickly, by necessity: we literally couldn't live there for more than a day with so many boxes and bags lying around.
For the kids and me, Drop-Off #2 was our final destination of that day; we said thank you and goodbye to our amazing movers, and then I set to getting the kids comfortable, having some dinner delivered etc. while Dr. Spouse plodded onward with the movers to Drop-Off Site #3: the storage unit.
We as a family had scoped out a highly-rated, climate-controlled local storage unit a few days beforehand....
...and on Moving Day, the unitS (yes, plural) quickly changed from cavernous, corrugated tin boxes into jam-packed, filled-up tanks of our family's junk. I had a picture of it, somewhere... but I can't find it right now. And honestly, you're probably better off.
Anyway. So.
This leaves us, sweaty, exhausted, and overwhelmed in every sense of the word, on the evening of February 20, 2021. After 11 straight days of packing from about 7:30 am to 2:30 am every single day, sorting out the mountains of logistics of movers, storage, apartment rentals, real estate transaction details, homeschooling where we could, and generally going through all the feelings on the spectrum of human emotion - we were all knackered. I surprised myself and the entire family by announcing, around 5 pm, that maybe it would be in our best interest to check into a motel that night and get some good sleep in a calm, settled environment, before tackling the next day. We still had a ton of work to do before we would say our absolute and final goodbye to our old house; the hustle and bustle of moving day meant that we'd left the house behind empty, but full of dust bunnies, leaves and dirt that had been tracked through the house. We had HOURS of cleaning ahead of us. Then, there were a few spackled spots on the walls that needed another coat of paint, I had left back a few small things in my gardening cabinet in the yard, and generally - I wanted us to have a last moment together, as a family, in that house - to honor our time there and say goodbye to it once and for all. It was going to be a big day, in and of itself,
So Dr. Spouse, surprised and only too happy at my suggestion of the motel, got on his phone and located a reasonably-priced motel in our old neighborhood within minutes. We decided to keep Pixel at our old house, locked in her old room with her litterbox, food and water for just one more night; she was already totally discombobulated and freaked out by all the noise and activity of the movers taking away all the furniture that day (we'd kept her enclosed in the bathroom in her room the entire day so that she wouldn't escape). The last thing we wanted to do was to subject her to not one, but two changes of environment within 24 hours - because clearly, the next day we'd be moving her into the apartment with us. So we kissed her goodbye for the evening, and wearily made our way to dinner, and then to a hotel.
To be continued.... again.
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***SPACE BAR!!!***
When my sister and I were young in the 1980's, we used to love - LOVE! - this game on our old, gigantic Macintosh II computer. It was called Crystal Quest.
So in the game, the player used the (giant, roller-ball) computer mouse and single, rectangular button to control the cursor (the white circle thing in the center of the above image), as it tried to navigate this black field full of diamond shaped crystals (good), random mines, obstacles, and "bad guys" that made the most hilarious noises ever. Once in awhile, this shiny, massive crystal would pop up on the screen and start bouncing around crazily, and you got beaucoup bonus points if you could capture it - but the risk was running into aforementioned mines and bad guys, some of which shot bullets at you, multiplied, "pooped" out mini-bad guys that acted as more obstacles and mines, and some even exploded when shot. Amazing, amazing game.
If you're dying to see this in action - view here:
youtube
Anyway. As you leveled up in the game, obviously things would get hairier and more difficult, and my sister and I had limited talents overall in the video game department... suffice it to say, we never got very far. We never "conquered" the game. The only reason we got as far as we did was because of ***SPACE BAR!***. This became our "safe word" to each other while playing - b/c when things got hard enough, if you were lucky enough to have aggregated enough points or crystals or whatever, you'd start earning the right to "bombs," which were these "clear the palate!" deals that you'd detonate in the game in order to clear the entire field of bad guys and mines that were bothering you. You only had a limited number, so you couldn't do it often, and my sister and I were so untalented at the game, that neither one of us was ever really coordinated enough to control the mouse and the space bar at the same time, hence the need to shout SPACE BAR! at each other so that the person not playing would hit the space bar for the other one! But anyway. They were a saving grace when things got just too complicated and overwhelming.
So. Why am I bringing this up?
A few weeks ago, Dr. Spouse and I officially hit the Space Bar for our family.
After about 100 days on the market, we finally got a real offer on our house. A serious one. We'd had a few others, but none felt serious, and/or negotiations didn't go very far with them. But this buyer really meant business - and they were in a huge hurry. From the time of their offer till our closing date and move-out, only about 17 days elapsed. It felt like the blink of an eye. Funny, b/c there was hardly a moment to waste simply blinking eyes. We had to HUSTLE to get the house packed up, our movers organized, and most of all - to figure out where the $%^& we were going.
Because, our family likes to make things as complicated as possible :)
The truth is, we actually bought a house. We had a house that we were able to buy, and we are OVER THE MOON about it. I'll talk way more about it soon, but suffice it to say - it is my DREAM home. I am so excited about it.
But. New house is a FIXER. We are looking at ~6 months of renovations at that house - renovations so significant, that living in the home is going to be impossible for a time. So we were going to need somewhere else to put up for awhile during this whole remodeling thing. With our two children, and our cat. Eep.
Cue Dr. Spouse IMMEDIATELY launching a great short-term rental apartment/house hunt. Which lasted approximately two days, because we really just didn't have the time for it to last longer, and the silver lining of our situation is we knew that whatever rental we chose, it would only be for a few months.... so. Happily, he found something that we could all live with quite easily: a 3 bed/3 bath, split-level townhome with a one-car garage and a small balcony, with all hardwood floors throughout. The boys would be able to share one of the larger bedrooms, and the main bedroom with en suite separate bath was a generous size for the two of us. The third bedroom would serve as our homeschool classroom, Pixel's nighttime abode, and our "just in case someone has to come stay with us even though Covid is pretty much guaranteeing we won't have guests" guest room. Best of all, the apartment is only about 3 minutes from our new house, so we can keep an eye on the renovations. It's also zoned for the same public school that the house is, so in the event that we are still living here by next school year (which OMG, we better not be - the house better be finished by then!) - the kids could enroll in the school, and then continue going there even once renovations are done and we move into the house.
Soooo many FaceTime tours of apartments provided by Dr. Spouse....
As he tackled the "where will we live" question even while working an extraordinarily busy few weeks at work, I did my best to handle pretty much all the other details. I dealt with all the paperwork and communication with the realtors about the sale of our house. I got estimates from three moving companies, found a storage unit for the 60+% of our household belongings that we wouldn't be bringing to the apartment, and I worked on some household repairs at the old house to get it in shape to hand over to the new owners....
Honestly.... I feel the need to give you all an EXTRA moment of time, to take in and appreciate this haute couture ensemble I am rocking as I use my power sander to smooth out the drywall compound that I've slathered onto our TV wall mount holes. Just look at me. I'm a vision, in my Amazon Basics T-shirt, jean shorts, pink flying elephant apron, Isotoner bedroom slippers, and my protective eyewear and mask. Rawr. Sexy beast.
The glamour didn't stop there. Then came the Packing Up of the Shit. Decluttering, tossing out trash, donating stuff, then boxing up the contents of the universe. BOXES, BOXES, BOXES. I was swimming in them. And, it wasn't just the boxing. It was the decision-making. Because, as I mentioned earlier -this was a complicated-ass move. We were moving from one house, into not one, not two, but THREE different locations: the temporary digs during renovation, the storage unit that would house all the shit that wouldn't fit in the apartment, and then we made the decision to have all of our outdoor patio furniture and crap delivered directly to the backyard of the new house. So, one point of origin, THREE points of delivery with this move. COMPLI-CAAYYY-ted. I developed this elaborate numbering/color-coding system. For real. Numerous round colored stickers were involved.
Okay, Tumblr is being weird and saying I've exceeded the number of pictures that is permitted in a single post.... so I'm going to pause here, and continue in a sequel!
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The Lowlight Reel...
What is the opposite of a "highlight reel?" Is there such a thing as a lowlight reel?
Every year, I design a holiday card to send to friends and family that contains some photos of memorable moments over the last year. I work really hard on it, do a lot of painstaking editing of the photos before I then upload them onto card templates and toy with them till they look right. I obsess over the fonts and layouts, blah blah.
Last year, my sister and I were working on our cards together b/c they were visiting us over Thanksgiving... and in the late hours (and a bottle of wine in), we decided to get goofy, and we designed some holiday cards that had some of our respective families' worst pictures of the year. Ugly and unflattering pictures, photos of kids having tantrums, other moments we'd rather forget - they all went in. It was a hoot. I decided this should be an annual tradition.
Sooo.... presenting, this year's Lowlight Reel.
I've blurred a few names and stuff for privacy. But yep, there it is. This card will never be ordered or sent to anyone - but it was fun to design regardless!
Eagle-eyed viewers might notice two photos in particular from the back side of the card: one is a photo of our roof with a big blue tarp on it. SIGH. Yes, in addition to viral pandemics, a ranting autocratic world leader at the helm, election mayhem, murder hornets, a cavalcade of hurricanes, and everything else - our family had not one, not two, not three, but something like SEVEN or eight roof leaks over the summer. It was OBNOXIOUS! This is in addition to several (maybe 4 or 5?) that we've had in the past. Generally, our house - which is beautiful, and which we have loved A LOT - has not always seemed to love us back :( We have had a lot of frustrating problems and repairs that have been both $$$ and exhausting for us to live with. We've had several weeks and month at a stretch over the last five years where we were living in a legit construction zone.
This past summer, we finally had it. We waved the white flag, and started looking at new houses. It was kind of surreal to come to this decision during a pandemic - but in some ways, also sort of an interesting opportunity. Stay tuned for updates on this front.... but our family may be in for an exciting move in 2021.
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Crafting Days
I’ve been more artsy craftsy in the last few months, at regular intervals, than I’ve been in probably years. It’s been delightful - again, a silver lining of some otherwise weird and unnerving times. But, we must relish the sweet things in life, mustn’t we.
Made myself some cloth face masks... repurposed from the optional sleeves that are provided with many salvar kameez sets bought in India! Yay for staying safe and doing so by repurposing/upcycling! I also like that these are unique prints of fabric.
This tan, cotton, block-printed one is my “everyday” mask....
(forgive my appearance in this hideous pink paper gown... I was at my allergist’s office for some dreaded allergy testing, and was keeping myself occupied so I didn’t have to think about all the shots I was about to get)
And this bright blue bandhini (tie-dye) and bead-embellished silk one is my “fancy” mask ;)
I’m especially proud of my proprietary design with this blue mask - - I made this one with a filter pocket, as well as a lip gloss/lipstick guard, haha! I should probably keep my trade secrets to myself, but I can’t help sharing.
I also made a few “ear-savers” for the kids’ masks, because they both kept complaining about how their masks bothered their ears.
In the category of “Crafting: Covid-19 Protective Gear,” I can also share pics of these vinyl decals that I have made for our family’s face shields. Here are the decals I’ve made for Vev and Dey’s shields - a volcano and a monster truck, respectively:
As for my own shield - I had made a very detailed elephant face one for my first shield and wore it all the time, but alas - I think that my shield has walked off somewhere (read: a visiting child at our house might have accidentally broken it, and thrown it away). So I ordered myself some new shields, and have been in the process of embellishing them with these decals the last few days.
Those initiated in the dark arts of die-cut crafting may pick up on the fact that with this recent group of projects, I have finally taken the plunge into the world of MULTI-LAYER VINYL projects. I have, thus far, not been brave enough to attempt this, but after watching a number of YouTube tutorials, I decided to give it a whirl. To my delight, its actually not as hard as I thought it would be! I have definitely had some imperfect turns with some decals, and I doubt I’m destined to be an Etsy store owner - but but most of the time, its not too horrible, at least for projects for my own personal use.
So! On to other types of projects. I made some vinyl decals to dress up these boring collage picture frames that I had prepared with photos of Vev and Dey dopplegangering each other as babies....
And then, I’ve been doing some more greeting cards and paper crafts. I made a few cards which I seem to have neglected to photograph (dammit), but I’ve also been making these section dividers for the kids’ homeschooling portfolios. Homeschooling portfolios are basically these big-ass binders that you have to prepare for a homeschooling student, which contain all sorts of info from administrative details, to curriculum samples, to samples of the kid’s work, for the ENTIRE year. The eventual purpose of the portfolio is for review by a designated authority person from the state department of education to ensure that your child has met all requirements satisfactorily for advancement to the next grade level, for if/when you plan to put them back in traditional school.
Putting the portfolios together is a very involved task - but, to be honest, I’m actually enjoying it a lot. It’s been a chance to use my educator brain to get all the administrative and curricular details laid out, but also my creative brain to make the portfolio interesting and visually engaging.
So. Anyway. Here are a few of the dividers I’ve made to denote the various academic subjects that the kids are studying with me this year!
And here is the cover art for Vev’s portfolio. I was super proud of myself for searching the internet till I found a free downloadable font that is a replica of the original Pan Am logo font :)
I have to take a pic of Dey’s cover art, as well as the other academic subject dividers I’ve made! Somehow I’ve not been very fastidious with photographing my work.
A final area of crafting (or at least, creativity) that I can showcase today is recent pancake art. I don't remember the last creations that I showed on my blog, so forgive me if there are repeats....
I might have shown these before... a brain for Dr. Spouse, and a couple of pancakes made in the image of beloved toys (Dey’s robot, Vev’s “doom buggy” courtesy of the gift shop outside the Haunted Mansion ride in Disneyworld)
Other random, “normal” stuff a kid would ask for (well, at least my kids).... a football stadium, a racecar, a squid, a whale, a tombstone (Halloween year-round, baby) :
But they also have me make other weird shapes and scenarios.
~~~~. Okay, I had every intention of putting a few more pictures up in this post. But for some reason, Tumblr is behaving crazy and not allowing me to upload anymore. Dang. Well - I’ve sat on this post for a few days now, trying to troubleshoot Tumblr, but I think what I’ll do is just hit post, and save some of my weirder, more random pancake art requests for another day.
Alrighty... toodles for now!
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