Eleni

What a guy!

If I inherited my love of sewing from my grandmother, then I inherited my love of gardening from my ma, but biting off more than I can chew is my own design - enter hubby to save the day (or in this case, save my plants from dying).

This summer our yard has undergone a MAJOR transformation.  We knocked down trees, and replanted a ton. I am really looking forward to the profusion of flowers we are going to have next year.   I've slowly been planting a butterfly garden all season, added a bunch of bird feeders, as well as adding herbs and tomatoes to our little oasis.   So here we are at the end of our botanical journey, days are getting shorter, nights are cooling off and autumn is in the distance.  Dennis spent the day pulling gigantic rocks out of the earth and transporting them into the woods behind our house in order to make way for the new arborvitae the poor guy is exhausted and and I pull up with a bunch of almost-dying mums.  Seeing the mums in their parched, near-death state tugs at his heartstrings and voila! we have planted mums:

and after all that work, a nice drink for the man!

and of course the man's dog!

 

Happy Friday peeps!

Thoughts on Balance

Another little hiatus for me and the little guy, this time we were off to Cape Cod with my family.  What a relaxing and enjoyable vacation.  It was such a great escape from the norm, the house is right on the beach, and we breathed fresh salty air every day.  There was no computer, the TV was down to 4 channels, we had limited cell service and even though the weather wasn't great, we still sat on the beach, bundled up in sweats with a basket full of treats on hand to keep us from going back in the house. 

The coolest thing for me on this vacation was that I got to be a kid again, my mom is such an amazing woman, she's endured a serious amount of hardship in her life, yet isn't bitter one bit, starts everyday with a smile and loves to have fun.  She was seriously born to be a caretaker and she took care of everything.  At 4 am, with Chris having a meltdown, I heard the tiniest tap on my door, in she walks, snatches up the child and says, "you sleep, I'll take care of him" and off they went.  I watched with amazement as she fed Christopher while preparing dinner for us, keeping a patient eye on my 8 year old nephew who has a tendency to be everywhere, into everything, and talking about 400 different things at the same time.  She's got the whole mom thing down pat. Is there a mother of the year award out there that she could win?  In my book she already has.

Vacation is so therapeutic in so many ways. In our normal day to day life, it feels as though we center our lives around a constant to-do list, and once everything is checked off and completed, is when we can start living. It's a weird feeling not to have that to-do list looming over your head for a week.  It's kind of sad that we put ourselves through this, scheduling every block of time with a task, chore or even a fun activity.  Trust me, I'm all for schedules (especially ones that involve little ones napping) and I believe that life should be ordered around a few basic things - mealtimes, napping, playtime, but you can really make yourself crazy trying to get "it" all done, and for what?  I mean, when it's all said and done and I croak are people going to stand around and say, "hey yeah that Helena, great person, she did her food shopping every Monday" But then again, I guess I wouldn't want anyone standing around saying to say how I barely got  through life not knowing my ass from my elbow.  OK, so here's the conundrum - balance. What is it? Who defines it - is it up to the individual or do we allow society to tell us what it is?  Who has it? How do we get it?  Why do we even give a crap, maybe we don't even want it?

Sorry for my rambling peeps, the moon has been full so it brings out the warewolves and a philosophical post.  Here's a pic of my babes on the beach last week.

My Faves

Ok, so since I've been busy getting together the fall line and catching up on orders, I thought that I would share a list of random faves, if you have any similar or not-so-similar faves, please share, I love, love, love reading comments, so please de-lurk and share!

1. Anna Maria Horner - Greek Gal (or even better 1/2 like me!) Has a daughter named ELENI! and totally rocks!  She's a fabric designer and designs a bunch of other things as well, and a mom to FIVE! I love reading her blog every day.  She seems like a real down-to-earth lady.
2. Blood Diamond - What a great movie! We saw it this weekend, and I think I've looked up everything about the movie and this topic that I possibly could.  Yes, it's graphic and violent and somewhat disturbing, but please, rent this and see it, you will not be let down.
3. The above-mentioned movie brings me to my new fave actor I love Leo!  What a catch ladies, if you are single and looking for a handsome, tall, smart, eco-conscious guy, Leo is your man!
4. Which leads me to my fourth new fave Composting!  Alright, alright, maybe not the greatest fave in the world but I live in the country, there are no garbage disposals here, so this is huge.  I've done the research and hubby and I are going to start this process ASAP - any hints or tips would be cool!
5. Obsessed with this color is an understatement.  Dennis keeps calling me "goth" hmmmm...
6. This wine in the summertime.
7. This Book was incredible, and it's based in Boston!
8. Mesa Grill - if you ever have the opportunity to go, please do!  Dennis and I went and had the most incredible meal and experience, and Bobby Flay was there cooking that night! I could've died, but instead knocked over my glass filled with red wine and not only stained the tablecloth, but my new $120 sweater that I bought at Bloomingdales earlier that day, ahem. 
9. This leads me to my second NYC fave Norma's in the Meridien hotel.  You want breakfast, go to a regular greasy-spoon, you want a breakfast experience go to Norma's!  Oooh wee child, I can still recall that am like it was yesterday, but it was like 3 years ago.  Man, what an awesome trip to NYC that was: knock offs on Canal Street, celebrity run-ins, steaks and coconut cake, talking baseball in old school bars, I could go on and on, but in a nutshell a great, great trip!
10. And last but not least, looking forward to this.  I love summer, not ready for it to be over, but the magnificent display of color around here is just breathtaking.  Hopefully I can talk the old man into taking a ride up north, and I'll share some personal pics of the event!

So now, I've decided that I need to know about some of y'all's favorites, so I am tagging two blogging peeps for their list:

Mary at Confessions of a Craft Addict

and an old work-mate turned SAHM She's Just Another Manic Mommy.

Ok ladies, the Sauvignon Blanc is calling my name.

One post, two topics

Thanks for the encouragement and advice about the teething monster that has invaded my home.  He's already got 6 in his mouth (4 top 2 bottom in case you were wondering....I know you were on the edge of your seat wondering), so if I stick my finger in there with the orajel, it's like sticking my finger into a paper shredder or better yet meat grinder... get the pict'cha? Oh yes,and he hates the taste of infant motrin, but when I show him the infant tylenol (grape) he actually smiles and opens his mouth... talk about Pavlov's Dog! Ok, so enough with my baby drama, I'm building a bridge and getting over it. 

I haven't posted a sweatshop rock post in a while, because I haven't been in the sweatshop rocking out much lately, but I absolutely had to share this CD with y'all.

Now, I am not a huge jazz person, not that I don't like jazz, but I just don't know a lot, um anything about it.  But fear not, because I do know my ears, and my ears like this, so I am going with it.  Chances are you've heard this already, they play it in Starbucks, on bank commercials, and numerous other places, so it's definitely appealing to the masses.  Even my lovely husband, who's last musical purchase was DMX in like 1998 was digging this album when I played it for him during our Friday "date night" a few weeks back.  It was then when I let him in on the fantasy that this album conjures up quite vividly, I'll let my inner geekiness come out here, and let you in too.  Ok here it goes, please bare with me and try not to laugh at me too hard:

I am not sure of the year, but it is around the time of the Beatniks and I am dressed similarly to Audrey Hepburn's character in the movie Funny Face . Outside, my apartment, which is located in NYC looks like this (yes that is Carrie's apartment from Sex and the City).    And  inside,my floors are graced with a white shag carpet and a sofa that looks similar to this.  I am hanging out with my circle of friends, who happen to be artists, writers, and , musicians, everyone is extremely intellectual and we are having a very deep, and meaningful discussion about who knows what! In the corner of the room a jazz trio is playing. We are sipping wine, smoking very long cigarettes.

And that's pretty much it, kind of lame, yes but it's my fantasy, and although it's not really a fantasy where something happens, it's fun to think about times and places that you know you will never be right? Isn't that what makes fantasies so much fun?  When you think about it, your imagination is such a wonderful gift, it can transport you from here to anywhere whenever you want.  I can easily recall being a little girl (like kindergarten age) and being at school in the moment but also being worlds away playing with my barbies.  I would dream up scenarios that my barbies would play out when I got home.  I had the entire thing scripted,  every detail accounted for, I knew what the barbies were going to be wearing, what the premise would be, as well as the outcome, it was so much fun.  I look forward to doing that (imaginative play) with Chris, but am not sure about dressing up GI Joes.  We shall see!

A letter to a teether...

Dear teether,

I love you and I love teeth, but I hate teething, and apparently you hate it too.  What can we do? 

1. Infant Tylenol - check
2. Huge supply of teething rings in various shapes, sizes, colors, textures - check, check, check, check, and check. 
3. Bib in place for drooling - check
4. If teething rings don't work, frozen facecloths - check
5. Mommy's dose of Tylenol (because her head is ready to explode from all the whining) - check
6. Extra caffeine (not much sleep last night) - check
7. Call husband at work and through gritted teeth and yell at him for no reason - check (unfortunately)
8. Surf Internet for remedies - I'm on-line aren't I
9. Call mom 900 times - she's stopped answering the phone
10. Resolve herself to the fact that this mama needs to take a few deep breaths and suck it up and deal.  Wish me luck peeps!

We're back.....

The end of vaca is a bummer, you start off thinking "wow, we've got TONS of time, a WHOLE WEEK to do stuff, then in the blink of an eye, it's a memory....it sucks!  We got back from our trip to York, ME this weekend.  And boy what a week! Days were spent at the beach: body-surfing, boogie-boarding and rock-balancing.  Nights were spent trying to get our kids to go to sleep, eating way too much of this, relaxing with a good drink, and watching some bad TV (it was a train wreck I tell ya but we couldn't stop watching it!). Throw in some touristy adventures a bit of outlet hopping and top it all off with the constant sound of this and voila! you were there at York beach, on summer vaca with us!  Have a looksie:

 

Let's have a great week, I will be spending mine digging out of mounds o'laundry and trying to get the "Signing Times" theme song out of my head.  Wish me luck!