I drew the letters and then my daughter painted over them with those dot paints.  I also created two giant 3′s to decorate the walls using poster board that I let her go to town on with water colors.  They came out really well, but of course not one photo.  Aaargh!!! I could maim myself, but that would hurt and then I’d have a hard time doodling and well….it would just be bad.  So…I have been doing something with my nights, just not doodling.

Hoping to have something up by the end of this week.  We shall see.  Thanks for sticking with me though.  I do appreciate it.

(taken with my iphone)

I know…I’m a week late posting.  I’ve just been so tired this week and to be honest, I wasn’t too thrilled with this project so it took me a while to complete it.  It’s the struggle of trying to post one a week, and/or getting something almost complete and then disliking it.  I am not as connected to this drawing as I have been to the past few, and so it goes. Onwards and upwards!

**I reserve the right to all content and drawings on this blog and they are not for reproduction.  Please contact me if you’d like to reproduce them.***

**I reserve the right to all content and drawings on this blog and they are not for reproduction.  Please contact me if you’d like to reproduce them.***

The first one is taken by my iphone around midnight last night when I completed the drawing, and the second one is done with help from my awesome graphic designer husband and manipulated a lil in photoshop. (You can click on each photo to make it larger.)

**I reserve the right to all content and drawings on this blog and they are not for reproduction.  Please contact me if you’d like to reproduce them.***

(you can click on the drawings to get a closer look )

It’s done with chalk on a wall painted with chalkboard paint.  As per my usual disclaimer, it’s a rough drawing, picture taken with my iphone, and done in only a few hours, but it’s something, so I’m posting it.  I might go back and add a bit more, but for now…this is it!  If you’re interested in learning more about hellomellow please venture over to Tracy’s website www.hellomellow.com

**I reserve the right to all pictures/drawings/renderings on this blog.  Please to do not copy or recreate these unless you have contacted me.**

So here goes…

Doodle Numero Uno

TURTLE

***  I reserve the right to all renderings and/or re-postings of any/all content on this blog.  Please contact me if you’d like to re-post anything posted.  Thank you. ****

Taken from a post on www.americablog.com

Palin yesterday in Pennsylvania:

“In times like these with wars and financial crisis, I know that it may be easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life, and it seems that our opponent kind of hopes you will forget that,” Palin told a Pennsylvania crowd.

Still think this woman should be in charge of your 401k? Oh, who cares if you lost half your retirement, at least with a Palin administration you can be sure women will be forced to keep and give birth to their rapists’ babies (after we make them pay for their rape kits). After all, isn’t that what really matters right now?

So that’s me in that picture above.  I am officially 6 months pregnant, and doing really well to my astonishment.  I wasn’t sure how I’d be as a pregnant lady, but I find that I don’t even really notice my ever increasing mid-section until I get dressed most mornings.  It’s the trying to squeeze into my now shrinking maternity clothes, that tends to remind me.  Often, when I’m just going about my day though, I’m tend to forget that I’m getting larger, which is great.  I know this is fleeting, and supposedly the joy of being in my 2nd tri-mester, but I tell you what…I’ll take it! 

I feel good much of the time and I’m working out regularly, which feels especially good.  I never thought I’d like Water Aerobics as much as I do, but I really really do.  It’s the bees knees!  I’m no longer the youngest in my class.  When I started a few months ago, it was just me and several older Irish ladies in their late 60′s early 70′s.  The classes were a bit tame, but sometimes we’d get a real go getter who’d whip us into a aerobic frenzy and really get our floating water noodles pumping!   Now there are a few sprightly young women in my class and we’ve actually become friends, which increases my enjoyment of the class even more.  They tend to take the class up to 11, but me, I’m still just taking my time with the older ladies and enjoying the 45 minutes of blissful movement in the water.  I’ve also started taking Pilates, which I must say is a lot harder than I imagined it would be.  I find it difficult to focus on squeezing my pelvic floor, while I’m holding a ring apparatus in between my legs, squeezing my legs together, while simultaneously lifting my rear end off of the floor.  My mind is good at multi-tasking, but this is beyond it’s capacity!  Needless to say, I also love the Pilates and the challenge of squeezing so many of my body parts at one time has me at least hooked until I master it completely!  So YAY! 

This week though I caught some stomach bug, which during pregnancy shouldn’t happen to anyone.  I woke up on Monday night frightened that I was going into false labour.  Of course the pains in my belly were no where near the area where pregnancy pains occur, but they were in my stomach, so of course my brain spiraled.  In my completely twisted brain, I didn’t first worry about the baby, the health of the baby, etc.  I instead worried that I’m not AT ALL ready to have the baby.  I haven’t cleaned out the cabinet where we plan to store the baby clothes, we haven’t even purchased the crib, stroller, car seat etc.  I went through the list of all that I haven’t accomplished several times before I began to spiral to the fact that what if the baby isn’t alright!  Organization over health I always say!  RIDICULOUS!  Anyway, once I was done spiraling, I was finally able to recognize that the pains in my stomach were more closely related to trapped wind than labour and I repositioned myself trying to dose off back to sleep. 

So, as this week passed, it seems, as I mentioned, that I caught a stomach bug.  I didn’t go to the doctor, because there isn’t much they can do.  I learned that there is something going around, and basically I’ve just been doing my best to stay hydrated, take it easy and eat bland foods till this passes.  I have an OB appt. next week for those of you who are worried…so don’t worry.  All is good.  I have been taking it easy though, like you wouldn’t believe.  Feet up, watching too much TV and parousing the Internet.  I am totally on top of all of the Hollywood gossip, ask me anything.  I don’t need to go to PerezHilton to check it out.  It’s now stored up in those compartments of my brain where I keep useless and trivial information. 

With my keen celebrity trivia in tact, all this relaxing has heightened my basic observation skills due to a lack of interesting things to focus on.  Anyway, what I’ve noticed as I’ve been sitting with my feet up for the entire week is, that only my right foot and ankle tend to swell.  It’s not even warm in Dublin at the moment.  It’s actually rainy and frickn’ freezing!  So I would think there shouldn’t be any swelling!  But, no my weird body is like that.  One sided swelling. I have CANKLE!  It’s not huge swelling, or painful, (not preaclampsia swelling) but to me it’s noticeable.  I notice that the baby tends to sit on my right side, and I’ve seen on the internet that other women have this same problem!  They are swelling only on the side where the baby tends to sit.  I thought it was unique to me, but when I typed it into Google, it came up on several pregnancy chat forums.  So, along with my stomach bug, I’ll bring this Cankle problem up to my doctor next week as well. 

My main man and I were joking around last night about my cankles.  I tend to get them in warm weather, pregnant or not.  You shoulda seen me in Mexico when we were there last summer.  I’m sure the copius amounts of tequila and near 100 degree weather didn’t help with water retention, but still…I was cankle-liscious!  We decided that I truly am going to be that shrinking old Jewish woman, with the giant swollen ankles and my chubby feet bulging out of my old lady shoes when I’m older.  Waddling through life on my cankles…seems like pregnancy is a precursor to my 80′s.  Oh what I have to look forward to!

Now, I’m not one to harp on Ireland.  There are a few things I find challenging and I’ve written about them in a witty and forgiving way, but today…IRELAND CAN FLUSH IT!!!!

Over the weekend, the flusher on my toilet broke off.  For the American’s reading this blog, the flushers on European toilets typically are on the top of the lid on the tank.  They’re like a button, rather than a handle.  When I went to flush one glorious morning, I pushed the whole button right into the the tank, leaving a hole on the top of my toilet where the flusher once happily sat.  With my swifty maneuvering, I finagled the flusher button to hang outside of the tank with the lid still on, and my toilet was working good as new.  Since there was no rush and all was still working, I had discussed with my husband that maybe I’d wait a week to call the plumber because I just wasn’t in the mood to be cooped up in the house all day waiting around for the plumber to come and fix my toilet, andmaybe if I gave it a week, I’d be more willing to sit around the following week. 

Well…Monday morning to my dismay, the toilet in our 2nd bathroom began acting up.  For some reason, after flushing, it took almost an hour for the tank to re-fill.  Since this is the bathroom my husband typically uses, I obliged and rang the management company of our “Awesomely located Ireland apartment” to report our very minor, non-urgent plumbing extravaganza!  To my surprise, a plumber called back within a few hours trying to organize a time to meet (see typically it might be a few days…so hours was a shocker!).  Since it wasn’t urgent, I was in no hurry.  So I understandingly listened as he told me that, …”well, it’s not so much trying to set up a time, as to explain to me why he was having a hard time setting up a time and, other clients needs and locations, and it’s going to be difficult to get out today etc, travel time from the North side is a nightmare, blah blah blah, can he come Wednesday evening around 7:00 pm.”  I’m thinking…AWESOME!  Wednesday at 7:00 pm is a set time, I know when to be home, I don’t have to wait around all day for him, and ultimately all toilets are still working with some minor adjustments and patience, so NO PROBLEMO!  See you at 7:00ish on Wednesday.  done, done and DONE!

So, 8:30 pm on Wednesday, the plumber shows up.  And the SAGA BEGINS!  Of course the toilet with the broken flusher is the old model that was cheaply made and they don’t make that button anymore, so he had to take apart my entire toilet, install a new flushing system, turn off our pump, drain all the water out of my toilet, caulk up the holes because the new system is smaller than the old one and, we’ll have to wait 24 hours before the caulking is dry.  Then onto the slow filling toilet.  Supposedly it was just dirt, blocking the pipe, but nope…something worse is wrong, somehow when they were testing it they discovered something drastically wrong with the toilet, it needs a new part, plus it wont stop running now and we have to turn on and off our pump if we want to flush or else the toilet is going to run, and run, and run all night.  This was all reported to us at 10:30 pm when he and his partner were done tearing apart my bathroom and making a mess that I would have to eventually clean. Oh, and,  ”they’ll have to come back tomorrow with a new part for the other toilet, but they have to go get the part in the morning and can he call me tomorrow to set up a time to come by and, blah blah blah blah.” 

In his kindest way, my husband who knew I didn’t want to sit around this week waiting for repair men, tried to get Mr. Plumber to set a time that he’d be calling, and stopping in.   Of course his question was met with…, “well, I’ve got another call in this place tomorrow, and I have to stop and get the part and the North Side, and traffic, and blah blah blah blah blah. Can I call you in the morning to arrange a time?”  While Mr. Plumber went into his soliloquy of reason’s why he couldn’t set a time, I just shook my head and looked amusingly at my husband as he tried ever so hard to secure some semblance of an answer from Mr. Plumber.  I’ve been the one dealing with these men of the trade since we moved to Ireland, and I know this is just a waste of breath and time.  So when he was done talking, I knowingly just sighed, eyed my husband with reasurrance and said…”sure, I’ll be around tomorrow.”  And then I proceeded to cancel any appointments and things that I had scheduled for the following day.

11:30 AM today…I finally called the plumber because he hadn’t called to set up a time and because in my very kind and understanding brain, 1/2 an hour before noon is still considered morning so I’m cutting Mr. Plumber some slack.  We flushed the toilet with the caulking and so far no leaks, so that was good.  A positive!  I have something positive to report, hallelujah!  He answers, somewhat annoyed that I’ve called him, tells me… “he still has to go out to get the part, worked the graveyard shift last night, something about the Northside and some other appointments, blah blah blah blah blah,  he’ll call me later once he gets the part.”  Again, trying to be an understanding, full of good karma lady, I say…”sure!” and hang up the phone.

It’s now 4:15 pm and I haven’t heard a peep.  I haven’t wanted to throw in a load of laundry because to fix the toilets they’ve had to turn on and off the water pump and I guarantee that the moment I throw in a load of laundry, he’ll call saying he’s on his way.  So…I sit here and wait.  Pregnant, hormonal, annoyed…and lo and behold…today is the first somewhat sunny day in Ireland in weeks!  I want to go out and take a long walk, but with my luck, I’ll be miles away and he’ll call saying he’s outside my door, and then I’ll miss him and have to spend another day waiting.  #$#%^&%$!#$!!!!!!!! (that’s me swearing out of utter frustration!!!!) 

I will call him again.  Don’t worry about that, but I’ve learned that the more you pester in Ireland…the longer it takes to get something done.  (Flashback to our month long wait to get our washing machine fixed.)  So, for now, I’m waiting.  Looking longingly out the window at the brisk, sunny day, cursing the day that my stupid, cheap, older version, toilet broke and trying to send out loving vibes to all Irish Plumbers to reverse my bad karma with the tradespeople of this Island.  Because if it comes from a loving place, you should get some love back right????  Please tell me that I’m right!?  Please oh please!