Twas Brillig

Check it out:

Seriously, I have them so duped.

So, what in the frickin’ brackin’ is cre8buzz? Well, see, it’s an online community—-bloggers like myself, mostly. But what’s neat about it is that it’s in beta, so it’s still small (meaning that peons like myself can make it to number one). So when they say “community” they mean COMMUNITY—-not just a place where a bunch of people get together and try to outdo each other.

And no, before you ask, I am not married to one of the creators, nor is this a paid post. Hahaha.

Within the cre8buzz community, there are a bunch of… communities. Okay, I don’t feel like I’m explaining this very well! haha. Anyway, once you become a member of cre8buzz, you have to pick a community that you want to be a part of. At first I picked “moms” because I am, in fact, a mom. But I moved away from moms, because for all my mothering, I’m not really a “mommy blogger”—-so I went to the “women” community instead. It’s a little more generic, a little smaller, a place where I felt like I not only fit in, but could contribute—-I could be ME–ALL of me, rather than the “mommy-blogger” version of me. And people come by and read my stuff and rate it, they see my pics and rate them, they comment and I comment back.

I’m getting to know so many people, and so many people are getting to know me. It’s incredible. I’m able to promote my blog while meeting amazing people.

So, anyway, because it’s in beta, the general public isn’t welcome yet—-it’s by invitation only (and thanks, Kimberly, for inviting me in the first place!) But one of these days, it’s gonna go public and it’ll be huge. And I, my dear gentle readers, will be a part of it.

And, as it just so happens, they have trusted me with a handful of invitations, and I’m dying to hand them out. DYING, I say! I’m like a kid in a candy store with a dollar in my pocket! So let me know if this is something you might be interested in.

(But if any of you tries to dethrone me, I’ll getcha. I don’t know where, I don’t know how, but oh, believe me, I WILL. Kidding, of course, because the second any one of you lifts a finger to do something, you’ll dethrone me. Sigh. Hey–at least I had my moment at the top, right?)

So, come on. Come and rock the buzz with me. Let me give you one of these invites burning a hole in my pocket. I promise I’ll give you a good rating.

Looking for Wordless Wednesday? You’ll find it below this post.

Once upon a time, in a strange and bewildering world called Bloglandia, there was a beautiful peasant girl named Brillig. She was charming, smart, attractive, funny, witty, delightful…

…wait. Where was I going with this? Oh yes…

Our Peasant Brillig was pining for something to keep her mind active, somewhere to focus her need for art and creation. The fates smiled upon her, and brought her Looking Into, a website run by two very accomplished women: Lady Jenn and Duchess Allison. Brillig found herself gazing at, nay, into the photographs posted there and therein learned that her dear friends were, in fact, brilliant photographers, not just outstanding writers.

And so Brillig, humbled by her dirty insignificantness, said to Allison, “Dearest Allison, of outstanding photograph-ness, wouldest thou that I should learn the art of image-capture under thy tutelage?” But immediately, our fair Brillig realized, with horror, that she would likely be instructed first and foremost to discard the filthy camera that she had purchased cheaply at her local peasant-market (Walmart). For surely, true photographers must work with only the costliest of instruments.

“Fret not thine self!” exclaimed the kind, sweet Duchess, whose station in life did not require her to listen to such peasants, but being kind and sympathetic, she did anyway. (And oh, how it warmed our Brillig’s heart!) “Thou canst capture images with something so simple as a box and a pinhole!”

“A box and a pinhole!” scoffed our Brillig. “Surely not!”

“Yea, indeed, fair Brillig. A box and a pinhole,” replied the ever-patient Allison. “Forsooth, a costly instrument is not necessary for true art and beauty. Nay, one can indeed acquire perfection through inexpensiveness.”

“Indeed?” questioned Brillig, her eyes dancing with the joy sparked by a new idea. “Why, then, I hereby challenge you and that Hollandy Jenn to take a picture with the cheapest camera in your household! Not a photograph from the past, nay, but something which thou snappest this week. Prove to me that you both can, indeed, capture something outstanding through inexpensive means.”

“I accept thy challenge, o thou Brillig of Brilligness!”

“As do I!” chimed Princess Jenn, who had heretofore been most silent on the issue.

And so, our fair Brillig waited with bated breath until she received word via courrier (gmail) that the challenge had been met.

And just this evening, word arrived.

Allison (who you likely know better as “SMID”) and Jenn have posted their outstanding photographs tonight here, and Allison has posted her version (slightly less Hans-Christian-Andersonian than mine) of the challenge* at her site here. Go look, comment, admire. Because, as it turns out, a true artist really doesn’t need an expensive camera–just eyes to see.

(*In this same post, SMID also includes helpful tips to budding young photographers, like myself. Great advice! And thanks, Jenn and SMID, for accepting the challenge so beautifully–and do remember that if you have a challenge for me, I will happily accept, seeing as I owe you one!)

Wordless Wednesday

Soap Opera Sunday, dear Gentle Readers!

Once upon a time, there was this one guy. He somehow kept popping into my life. Sometimes we were romantically involved, sometimes we were raging enemies, sometimes he was involved with one (or two or three) of my friends. Usually, we were friends.

As it just so happened, he was on a mission for the LDS church right around the time I was, though we were in different missions.

He began writing me, which didn’t seem very strange because, as I said, we were friends–friends with a crazy past, but friends. And so I wrote back. Why not? It was a simple letter, filled with mission anecdotes and tales of my companions and the mud I walked through every day–mostly it was just a courtesy response to all the letters he’d been writing. And, well, to make it more entertaining–stir up a scandal in his mission–I drew hearts and left red-lipstick-kissy-marks all over the outer envelope. My rationale here was that I wanted to give the mail sorters, who were also missionaries, something to tease him over–which I explained to him in the letter. Because I certainly didn’t mean it as anything romantic–our romantic days were WAY behind us and I never thought of him that way.

Unfortunately, he, um, skipped that explanation.

The other night while I was going through the last of my junk as we were trying to move out of my old house, I found his response to my simple little letter. And so, now, I share a piece of it with you:

Brillig, I love you. A whole lot. I want to be perfectly honest, because I read your letter 50,000 times because the first time I read it, it said one thing to me and the second time it said another. The opposite. After that it was a tennis match–back and forth. The confusion rose to a fevered pitch when my companion took the letter away and read it himself. He told me that girls who weren’t interested in him didn’t kiss the envelopes, kidding or not. I agreed, but added that he didn’t know Brillig–to which he responded that apparently neither did I.

But you know what I think? I think I love you. And I always will. But you already know that. It’s just that when I think about you, my heart rate increases, I get in a better mood, or I sigh or something dumb like that. I can’t forget silly things like your voice or your eyes or your mannerisms. I can try to ignore them, but I can’t forget them. I love you, Brillig.

You can, then, imagine what I thought when I received this letter:

OOOOOOOOPS!!!!!

Apparently, I had a knack for making boys think there was something going on between us when, in my mind, there was nothing.

I hadn’t meant to mess with him, I hadn’t meant to “confuse” him, I hadn’t meant to elicit his pledges of love. And, the sad truth was, I was SO OVER HIM. I was… you know… um… just being… um… silly.

Oops!

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And here are the rest of the Soap Opera Sunday participants:

Walking Kateastrophe (my soapy co-conspirator)

Goofball

Kellyology

The Quiltmaker’s Gift

Canadian Flake

Soccer Mom in Denial

Thalia’s Child

A2EatWrite

MiniVan Diva

Summer’s Nook

Temporary? Insanity

Blonde Canary

Fourier.Analyst

Anno’s Place

Virtual Sprite 

Are you playing Soap Opera Sunday too? If so, be sure you link back to me and Kate and then let us know you’re playing (please do not assume that we already know!) and we’ll add your link to the list! For more info, read this post.

Flashback Friday!

About a year ago, my son Bubba, then three years old, started preschool.

Yup, the poor kid started preschool with no fanfare, no photos, no mother poking at his hair making sure it looked “just right.”

No, instead, his mother was on her way to the hospital. Again.

See, I was very pregnant and very sick. I dropped the kids (Fluffy was in the same school, just the older class) off, practically shoving them out the door, and then dropped Scooby off with my sister-in-law, Pam, and raced to the hospital where I was examined and FINALLY diagnosed with pre-eclampsia–severe enough that they wanted to induce me THAT. DAY. (You who know how very dedicated I am to homebirth/unmedicated birth will understand what a huge blow this was. Pitocin? In MY VEINS??? I don’t THINK so! And yet… there was no other choice.) So, I called Pam who agreed to pick up the kids and take care of them. She was such a lifesaver. I mean, she expected to have one of my kids for a couple of hours, and instead she ended up with ALL of my kids for a couple of days!!!

I called Brian and told him the news, so he packed up his things and headed home to meet me at the hospital, calling me as he made his way. And then I did what any other completely terrified, irrational, and psychotic pregnant woman would do.

I started bawling.

And bawling.

And bawling.

And the poor man was stuck on the phone with me.

Among the things I was bawling over was the fact that I had COMPLETELY flubbed up Bubba’s first day of preschool.

“How could I be so selfish? I’m a terrible mother! How can I be trusted to bring yet another baby into this world??? You KNOW I’ll end up ruining all their lives, because I’m too occupied with myself to take pictures of them on their first day of preschool!!!!!!”

That darling husband of mine was incredibly kind and supportive when, looking back, we both know that he was desperately trying not to bust up laughing at me.

ANYWAY! Today Bubba started a new year of preschool! And this year, I was NOT going to mess it up. So, yesterday, I took him shopping and we bought him all sorts of handsome new clothes and then we made a HUGE deal out of how he was about to start class, and today he got to take a bath all by HIMSELF (very rare, when you have two little brothers) and I took a bunch of pictures:

“This IS a smile, Mom!”

“How many more of these are you going to take?”

“Frickin’ Brackin’, Mom! Stop taking pictures and let me go to preschool already!!!”

And then, just before he walked into his classroom door today, he threw his arms around me and said, “Oh MOMMY!!!! I’m gonna miss Fuffy when I’m at preschool!”

Well, okay. I’d sorta thought that he was going to say that he was going to miss ME, but really, I think it’s incredibly darling that he’s going to miss his older sister. What a good boy.

So there you have it, folks. A happy day! And, despite his mother, I think he’s turning out just fine.

Wow! What a day this has been!!!!

1. It all started this morning, while I was frantically trying to get myself and my oldest two kiddos ready for a Very Important Meeting (which you’ll read about in a minute) when the phone rang. It was our realtor, calling to say that our buyer’s LOAN HAD COME THROUGH and that we would close TODAY! Hubby and I were stunned, to say the least. We expected, you know, a 24 hour notice or something! Still, not complaining, we arranged our schedules to be there together in the afternoon in order to sign all the paperwork as necessary. We can hardly believe it, but it really does seem to be over now. PHEWWWW!!!!!

2. Then, as I was running out the door for my Very Important Meeting, the phone rang again, but I couldn’t get to it before it went to voicemail. So I checked my message and it was the preschool that we’ve been trying desperately to get little Bubba into, saying that they had ONE spot open up suddenly and they were calling everyone on the waiting list and whoever called back first would get the spot. You can imagine, then, that my whole drive to Sandy for my Very Important Meeting was filled with me hitting redial over and over again until I was finally able to get through to an actual HUMAN and land, yes, THE spot for my son. WOOHOOO!!!! I’m so happy for him!

3. Upon arriving in Sandy, I called my Very Important Person with whom I was going to have my Very Important Meeting, and we met up for lunch. And just WHO is this mystery person? Why, it’s none other than the brilliant, delightful, charming, AWESOME Luisa from Novembrance, who flew all the way from Manhattan (or, you know, NEAR there) just to meet me! Uh… okay. Maybe it was to see her sister and to attend a conference out here. Whatever… So, she and I had a lovely lunch which she insisted on paying for (see how spoiled I am??) while my Fluffy and Bubba entertained us. I had such a good time with her, I couldn’t believe how fast the time flew. I left feeling like there were a billion more things I wanted to ask her and talk about and so on. I guess it’s a good thing I have her email address. The poor woman is going to be bombarded by me. I think I might start stalking her. Seriously, she’s THAT COOL!!!

4. After signing the paperwork for the closing and arranging for a piano mover and an electrician and grabbing all the final stuff out of the old (sold!) house, I came home. Hubby had to go back out, and my “big kids” went swimming with some friends while my babies slept. I thought, “hmmm, maybe I’ll catch up on all my blog-reads now.” Just as I thought that, I glanced out the window and WHO should be coming up my front steps????!!!!! IT WAS MATT!!!! You know, MATT!!!! Oh my gosh, I nearly died of joy. He came in and we sat and chatted for hours. It was so incredible to see him and catch up a bit. We realized that it’s been two full years since we last saw or spoke to each other. Not only had he never met my baby Fuzzles, but he didn’t even know of his existence! So, my kids all fell in love with him instantly, of course–who wouldn’t?–and we had such a great time. He was hilarious and obnoxious and naughty and all those things I love so dearly about him. I kept asking him how he knew where I lived and he refused to tell me. Of course. After all these years, he knows exactly how to drive me bonkers. Matt has always had a way of finding me. There was this one time when I dropped out of high school and bleached my hair and ran away and got myself an apartment and NO ONE knew where I’d gone and one day I found a little note under my door from him, telling me that he loved me and he missed me and hoped everything was going to be okay. I don’t know how he found me then, and I absolutely have no idea how he found me now. I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t have my phone number. He could have called any time. But he didn’t. He just showed up at my door. Almost no one knows that I live here, our name isn’t on anything or in any phone book, and those who do know we’re aren’t really “mutual friends” so I don’t know who told him. But he loves a good mystery, and he loves driving me crazy, and therefore he refused to tell me how he knew where to find me.

Matt, with three of my four kids attacking him.

(Hard to believe he’s involved in show-biz, I know.)

So, ‘fess up. Was it YOU who told him where I live? I’ve got to know. This is nuts.

Maybe I can get it out of him tomorrow, when we have lunch together!!!!

This has really just about been the best day ever. Tomorrow might suck. It’s very possible. But tonight? I’m floating on air.

Wordless Wednesday

Have you ever wondered?

I suppose it’s one of the reasons that many of us have MyBlogLog or other similar widgets in our sidebars.  Or why we install Google Analytics, or other statistic-reporting programs.

We’re dying to know who’s reading us.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a blog written by a guy I knew in Middle School–we both attended the same snooty private school, I in my hideous plaid skirt which I gleefully shredded at the end of my 8th grade year, he in his “your shirt’s not tucked in, Mr. Bohn, and I will report you to Mrs. Perry” uniform-rule-breaker-ness.  He was a fun kid, and it was cool to see that he’s turned into a rather decent human being, with a family and a law degree and on the verge of greatness.  And yet, ending up at his site completely randomly made me wonder–who ends up here?  (I commented at his site, by the way, but realized that since I write under a pen name here and it’s been, oh, 15 years since we last saw each other, he’s not likely to catch on real fast as to my true identity–nor, perhaps, care very much.  Who knows?)

There’s another blog I must confess to reading.  Once upon a time, in her senior year of high school, Brillig made an enemy.  An arch-rival.  A girl so wretched and ridiculous and horrid that just thinking about her makes me want to start a catfight and pull her hair or something, even after all these years.  I suppose it’s really a story that should be told as an SOS one of these days, since I think you’ll get quite a kick out of it.  Anyway, I somehow ended up at her site through a funny trail of friends and acquaintances and linkies.  And guess what!  She actually seems like a rather decent human being.  I KNOW!!!!  No one is as surprised by this news as I am!  I have never commented at her site, nor will I ever.  But I read it–faithfully.  Maybe because I’m looking for dirt, but maybe because I’ve genuinely come to like her.  But SSSSHHHHH!!!!  Don’t tell ANYONE!

And yet, it occurs to me that if I found her… couldn’t she have found me?  Is she here right now?

If so, hi, you frickin’ brackin’ $*!@&.

Also, many of you know, through snippets of the drama that I have posted, that I have an ex-boyfriend who reads my blog.  We still have a few friends in common, and I guess he followed a series of links and immediately recognized me as, well, me.  He was courageous enough to comment, even after I had written a particularly ROTTEN post about him.  I nearly DIED when I saw his name here (seriously.  Ask Kate.  I was FREAKING OUT!!!) but as it turns out, he’s been gracious and kind and unnecessarily apologetic for some of the crap that went down between us all those years ago. 

Anyway, it’s just kinda funny to think about.

So, ‘fess up.  Are you lurking somewhere that you shouldn’t be lurking?  Are you sometimes surprised by who ends up at your site?  Do you comment when you run into a real-life acquaintance in Bloglandia, or do you cower in a dark corner, sign out of your “mybloglog” profile and hope that they never know you were there?

Along with all of this, I have two blogs that I need to send you to–not for you to lurk, but for you to love, as I do.  The first is written by a dear friend of mine who is not exactly new to blogging, but she is new to her new name and site.  This is a girl who has been a friend of mine since high school–we have seen each other at our worst moments, we’ve seen each other at our best moments.  And, through it all, I love her dearly.  Her new blog made it’s grand debut yesterday with Soap Opera Sunday, and I suspect that you will find everything she has to say to be witty, charming, and entertaining.  So go on!  Check her out!  She’s at MiniVan Diva.  Isn’t that one of the greatest blog-names ever? 

The second blog you MUST check out is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  Seriously.  It’s as though the universe smiled upon me, by taking two of my all-time favorite bloggers (Jenn in Holland and Soccer Mom in Denial, to be precise) bringing them together, and blessing the world with art and entertainment.  Really.  I was cunning enough to receive a link before they were ready to go public, and I fell absolutely in love.  So, I’m so excited to be able to share it with all of you now!  Go on, go clicky-clicky!  They’re at Looking Into.

And with that, Gentle Readers (and Evil Lurkers–yes, I know you’re here–I’d actually be kinda disappointed if you weren’t), I bid you adieu.

Soap Opera Sunday, y’all!

Originally titled Confessions of an Ice Queen*

He was my date for the Christmas Formal my Junior year of high school.

He and I had actually flirted with each other for pretty much 3 years straight by this point. Why it took us so long to actually go out and do something together, I’ll never know. But what you need to know about me was that I was extremely innocent. And I was a very good girl, so while there was flirting a-plenty, I hadn’t actually had a real boyfriend or (and now I’m really blushing) even kissed a boy for real. I was 16, by the way.

(You’ll be happy to know that I eventually made up for lost time…)

The guy, however, wasn’t innocent… or what you might call a good boy. Not that he was terrible, or anything. He just didn’t fit into the bubble of prudishness that I lived in.

My parents almost had a total heart attack when this boy showed up at my house, scruffy-faced and earring-ed. Hahaha. I never even thought about how they might react to him! I just thought he was hot.

Anyway, date goes fine. We actually had a really good time. He was on his best behavior. And towards the end of the night, he was actually bold enough to put his arm around me, which I found kinda sweet. And I was totally into him. And while I knew he was into me too, he was keeping more distance than I’d expected–or wanted. (Though, looking back, I think he was afraid of ruining things, because I think he really did like me, and I was, as I said, rather a prude.)

So then he dropped me off at my house, and walked me to my door, and, well, I kissed him. I kissed him. I think that that was very unexpected… Anyway, it turned into an all-out make-out session, right there on my front porch. This was my first kiss…

(What I DIDN’T know was that my mother was waiting up for me and was incredibly worried about me.)

Suddenly, in the middle of full make-out mode, MY MOTHER KNOCKS ON THE WINDOW RIGHT BY MY HEAD AND ORDERS ME INSIDE. And I immediately obeyed–didn’t even say goodnight to the poor guy.

I really don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed in my whole life.

And boy did my mother let me have it. She sat me down in the chair of death in her office and interrogated me. She thought that I’d been keeping all sorts of secrets from her and that I was some sex-obsessed heathenistic mutant. Great. So now I had a curfew. Now she had to meet my friends. Now she was gonna be on my back all the time. (The reality was, I was actually a REALLY GOOD KID! I know I said that already, but holy crap! You would be hard-pressed to find a teenager more angelic than I was.)

(Also, she was too busy to actually have any idea who I was, or to do the checking-up on me that she threatened to do.)

ANYWAY, when I went back to school on Monday, I walked passed him in our Honors English class (see? A badboy in Honors English? You see why I was interested, right?) and he didn’t look at me. Didn’t talk to me. Didn’t seem to notice me leaning towards his desk to say “hi.”

“Fine,” I thought. “Screw you.” And it was actually kind of a relief, because as much fun as I had with him, I knew that I didn’t really want to be his girlfriend or anything. So this saved me from having to have that particular talk with him.

The next thing I know, he’s told the whole world his version of the story which somehow boiled down to the fact that I broke his heart, and I was the “Ice Queen” (a nickname that an amazing amount of young men throughout the school called me, even when I was making out with them) and yadda yadda yadda. Uh… he’d never called me, he never spoke to me, and now I’d broken his heart? I felt like I missed a whole chapter in our book, because none of it ever made any sense to me! Anyway, he managed to get that story pretty well-told, and “rebounded” with a group of Freshmen girls who, because of his story, hated me. A lot. (Those girls are now some of my very bestest friends and we actually think it’s all pretty dang hilarious now, but at the time they made my life a living hell.)

Of course, since we were involved in all the same things in high school, life was pretty tricky. Even so, we both grew up a bit and got over the awkwardness and got on with life. But I did learn later that he had sorta kept pining for me throughout the rest of high school, but he couldn’t bring himself to mention it because he was certain that I was over him.

And he was right. I was.

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*Sorry for the repost, y’all. There’s just no time today and, well, the majority of you never read that story…

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Now for the fun part! If you’re participating in Soap Opera Sunday, which is open to everyone (see here for rules) then be sure your post links back to me and the lovely Walking Kateastrophe and send us your permalink so we can add you to the list! (And, again, please do NOT assume that we know you’re playing along–we need to you actually send us your link, via comment or email!)

Also, to those of you who are members of Cre8Buzz! Why not go vote for my buzzblog post about Soap Opera Sunday, so that SOS can grow even more!

This week’s participants (LOTS of newbies! Welcome!):

Walking Kateastrophe

Temporary? Insanity

The Quiltmaker’s Gift

Fourier.Analyst

Summers Nook

Magically Mama

Musings from a Muse

Virtual Sprite

Novembrance

Minivan Diva

A2eatwrite

Canadian Flake

Goofball

Go check ‘em out!!

I’m sitting here watching the world premiere of High School Musical 2.

My kids are in bed. They are not watching it with me. That’s right. I’m watching it BY MYSELF.

I told them I’d TiVo it tonight and they can watch it in the morning.

But me? I couldn’t wait.

Oooh, Zac Efron is singing now. Dancing too. Gotta run.