daily Hazel #49

Elle Woods was wrong, orange is definitely the new pink!

missed

Missed her.

Missed him

Oh heck! I missed the entire circus act! I mean, uninterrupted slumber in an amazing king sized bed was bliss as was just sittingin a quiet hotel room in a cozy armchair and savoring…silence. But after a couple of days away I even missed the loud, goofy-assed things that go on here under the Big Top like thumbwars in the back of my car.

It’s good to be back home with the family I missed. It was good to get back to spend time with dear friends too.

Unfortunately, our dear friends, Rod and Lydia are moving away this weekend to retire to Indiana.They are so dear to us as they have been our friends (and practically family) since Holly was smaller than Hazel. Now time has fast forwarded to the point that they are meeting Holly’s baby girl for the very first time.

Gosh darn it all to heck, we sure are going to miss them. I guess we will have to make our way to Palmyra sometime soon. Until then, Rod and Lydia, we will miss you like crazy!

doppelgangers

Over at Sunshine’s place, …and the Pursuit of Happiness, there is a celebrity look-alike contest. While I am busy playing with my camera in order to become a better mamarrazzi I want y’all to head over there and vote for the twin of this guy.

Okay, perhaps not his twin but she certainly could pass for his mother.

Go vote…early and often!

sweet swag

I can’t believe how much stuff was packed into that swag bag. Yes, in the bottom left of the picture is indeed a lanyard. Don’t tell Bill that I am wearing it after all the fuss I put up about not wearing that lanyard in St. Louis. I still am not a lanyard wearing kind of girl but for this event I can suck it up a little.

At the Creative Photography Retreat in San Jose.

daily Hazel #48

Remember the story about the dress that Hazel wanted before she was even born? I am so glad that I bought it for her just because, as Hazey-Face’s Grandmom, I can.

As you can see, Hazel is glad that Grandmom can too.

my (snapshot) time

I’m running away from the circus for a few days.

Creative Photography Retreat (CPR) is here to empower you with the skills you’ll need to take more of the photographs you’ve always wanted.

Register for your spot at this debut event – the only one of its kind – where you’ll indulge in two days of exclusive and specialized photography training with a scrapbooking focus. This is a great opportunity to study the capacity of your SLR or dSLR camera.

Surround yourself with aspiring photographers like yourself while you learn from some of the industry’s most qualified photographers and inspirational scrapbook experts. CPR’s interactive classes will provide you with hands-on experience and “exposure” to top techniques for capturing everyday moments, creating priceless portraits, and making your photographs even better than ever. You’ll learn to perfect even the trickiest of photography and editing skills.

I have been so looking forward to this for a few months now…I get to learn more and more about my favorite toy along with learning more about photo editing of which I know that I know very little about. I am disappointed that one of the keynote speakers, Ali Edwards, will not be attending because I so wanted to meet her. Our photography, scrapbooking and journaling styles are fairly similar and I identify with her joys and struggles raising a son with special needs and learning challenges. But I also understand her need to bow out in order to focus on the birth of her next child. It’s all good. I probably would have come off a little too much a like a scary stalker fan if I were to meet her face to face.

Still it will be good to get away from the stress of the circus life for a few days. The very first thing on my agenda will be a long, very long, bubble bath followed by a nap!

homework haven

It’s homework time here under the Big Top.

and the kids aren’t the only ones…the juggling mama has homework too.

I sit for the advanced NICU practice certification in just 25 more days…YIKES!

daily Hazel #47

Back in the day as a brand new parent, the greatest joy was watching my daughter begin her own self discovery process. I remember being so excited and fascinated witnessing Holly discovering for the first time her hand as something more than a sucky-thing. It was actually an extension of herself that was capable of moving this way and that way and opening and closing…WOW!

It still fascinates me some twenty-two years later.

It’s pretty amazing for Hazel as well.

blogger rising

I am so honored to receive this award!

Over at The Rising Blogger, JHS, Esq. of Colloquium has recently taken the reigns as editor where she and her collaborative team are devoted to finding and spotlighting the best of the blogosphere in order to help bloggers find, enjoy, appreciate, and validate the work of other bloggers.

The Rising Blogger Post of the Day Award is bestowed upon original content that is insightful, inspiring, newsworthy, educational, informative, touching, creative, interesting, humorous or . . .

Like I said I am so surprised and honored to receive this award and to be featured. The news came at a great time for me last week when I was really questioning my baring perhaps a little too much of myself. The post selected, Breathing In and Out, was, more or less, a rant that spewed from my mind to my fingertips as I two-finger typed what I was feeling at the moment. I filtered nothing in that post. As the week progressed, I found myself re-thinking that post as well as a few more that followed. I want to be authentic to myself and to those who read this blog…and who might read it in the future. Still I don’t want to hang out too much of my garbage and baggage like my neighbor hangs out her underwear for the neighborhood to see. I reveal perhaps maybe only 5% of what goes on here under the Big Top. Of that 5% I try to share mostly good and funny things. But family life isn’t all perfect wonderful-ness like in the movie Pleasantville. So sometimes you get a glimpse of some of the garbage that can accumulate around this circus.

It’s a fine line we who chose to blog our lives sometimes walk. How true are we to ourselves, our family, our friends and our readers if we only share the warm, melted chocolate chip cookie goodness of our lives with our audience? Is that all they want to see or read about? As I teeter along that line I try to remain authentic by reminding myself what blogs do I read everyday without fail. Are they the Leave It to Beaver, Mayberry RFD type blogs or are they a little more real than that? My style of blogging, which I hope is mostly authentic, is a lot more real than wholesome, perfect life in 20 minutes with frequent commercial interruptions. For me, this award validates my choice to be a little more transparent. Life under the Big Top is a lot of joyful, hopelessly loud, chaotic fun and I certainly could never make up the stuff I do share. But life under the Big Top is sometimes messy too because it is so joyful, hopelessly loud chaotic fun. It’s a freakin’ circus! What else would anyone expect?

So with my acceptance of this award I am asked to pay it forward by nominating a post of another blog whom I feel is worthy of this honor. Keeping with the idea that we readers seek blogs where writers are real I want to nominate a post written by Nurse Sean. Sean is fairly young nurse in his career (compared to my over 18 years as a nurse). In the post A Dark Place, Sean shares his inner and outward struggle as he settles in his new role as a nurse in an intensive care setting. I identified with his dark place as a newer nurse trying to prove to the veteran nurses and docs alike that I had the skills and knowledge base to be there. As a veteran nurse, Sean’s post reminded me my own personal resolve not to be one of those crotchety old nurses who eat the fresh-faced-less-experienced-nurses-just-starting-out for breakfast. I used to be just like them only seeking to fit in, to learn more, to gain more experience and occasionally, be recognized for doing a good job…I still do in my RN-dotage. I imagine in literally any career, vocation or walk of life there are “young ones” like Sean who find themselves in a similar dark place where they are just trying to fit in and do their job well. I would hope that anyone who would read what Sean shares would be able to identify with him, even if they aren’t ICU nurses and perhaps gain a little more grace and acceptance for those around them. It is Nurse Sean’s post A Dark Place that I nominate for consideration for The Rising Blogger’s Post of the Day Award.

Do you have your own “post of the day” you would like to nominate? Would you like to be a part of The Rising Blogger team? Click here and definitely share.

long-haired no more

As shaggy as it can get, I make no secret how much I love my long-haired little boy. But it would seem that he is growing up and has his own idea of the kind of look that he wants. It isn’t this:

Okay, the messy face will always be there but the shaggy hair…he tells me no more. Now that he is in first grade, he wants to look like one of the guys…like his best friend, Ryan.

I tried not to cry too much during the transformation.

It’s not a buzz cut but it was a major transformation for my little man.

But it is still true that the more things change the more they remain the same.