SPF - Triangle

Stuff Portrait Friday restarted a few weeks ago, but I am just now jumping on board. If you'd like to play, too, hop over to Random and Odd and tell everyone you played!This was taken last summer when we watched the John Smith shallop come into Vienna, MD. Notice the triangles formed by the rigging?

So, did you play?

SPF - Rainbow

Kristine wants to see a rainbow this week. My son happens to have snapped this picture at the Creation Museum. The rainbow is just to the left of center.
Genesis 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”



Did you play?

SPF - Fork it over

This week's SPF is the silverware drawer. So here it is.
I bought those white trays for holding the forks, spoons and knives, but they always slide to the back when I open the drawer. Why don't they make those things shorter? I mean, really, who uses a foot-long spoon?

I have to say, it's been nice and peaceful around here now that our neighbors have moved out. They were very good neighbors, in that they kept to themselves and didn't bug us, but their six year old daughter was another story. She was over here all the time, particularly once school let out. And let's just say her parents didn't teach her much about social graces and leave it at that. I don't know why they moved (they sold all their pets, including three horses, and bought a smaller house with less land), but frankly, if I had two daughters and lived next door to a house full of boys, I'd move too. And quick.


So, did you play?

SPF - Kid art

Kristine wants to see our favorite piece of art from our children. Since I homeschool, I get to see all my kids' art projects, good and bad. And I also get to see the thought process behind them. And what can I say? My kids are weird. Case in point:
I can't remember the exact assignment, but I know he was supposed to paint rocks and flowers under a tree, creating a sort of triangular focus of interest. My goofball son "misunderstood" and painted rocks and flowers under a tea. Iced tea. Complete with a straw and a wedge of lemon.

Where do my kids get this weird sense of humor?

SPF - Air freshener

Kristine's assignment this week is our air freshener. I tried to think creatively, but I'm just not feeling creative this morning.
This is my favorite air freshener. First, I love the slogan under the name, "The process of elimination." Very cute. Second, I love the citrusy scent. Citrus is such a nice, clean scent. And third, I love its versatility. I can spray it in the air, I can spray it on the couch, and I always spray it on the air filter of my floor cleaner and into the basin of my vacuum. Then the air blows through and fills the whole room with a wonderful scent. Finally, this stuff lasts forever. I use it literally every day and I think I've had this bottle two years. Good stuff.

Happy Friday, everyone!

EDIT: Here's a link to buy it!

SPF - Back

Kristine's assignment this week is to show our back. To be interpreted however we wish.

So, I give you my back. The top picture is me one year ago, right after I donated my hair to Locks of Love. The bottom one is me this morning. Not only can you see a year's worth of hair growth, you can see a year's worth of weight loss. I'm almost 50 pounds lighter now. Cool.

So, did you play?

SPF - Bounce

Kristine wants us to show our bounce.
This is the guy who helps me bounce back when I'm depressed, who I can bounce ideas off of, who makes me bounce up and down with happiness just by walking through the door when he gets home. The big 15th anniversary is coming up soon!

Incidentally, my son took this picture, which is why we're looking down. I don't really have a double chin. Not anymore.

Did you play?

SPF - My brush

Kristine's assignment this week is your brush. This is mine:

It's a Goody "ouchless" hairbrush and it's the best hairbrush I've ever owned. I have really thick hair and it's very prone to tangles. This brush will go through it, no problem, and doesn't make me scream in pain.

Since I featured this hairbrush on my Favorite Things blog, I have had several comments asking where to get one. I got mine at WalMart. If you can't find them in your area, drop me a line and I'll pick one up for you. I accept PayPal, money orders, and large amounts of chocolate.

So, did you play? Have a great weekend!

SPF - framed!

Kristine's assignment this week involves frames. I had no clue what to take a picture of. Then we went on this little field trip yesterday. We visited Jerusalem Mill, which is a pre-Revolutionary-War mill near where I grew up. They fully restored it about ten years ago and have a wonderful little museum there now.

Outside, next to the blacksmith shop, sat this little wooden structure. I'm not sure what its purpose is, but I thought it looked like a neat place to take some pictures.

So this picture has two meanings for "frame" - the building is only a frame of timbers, and those timbers are framing the boys in the picture!

Did you play?

SPF - A handful

This week, Kristine's assignment is a handful of something.

I hear it every time I go out. First, it's "Are they all yours?" and then when I confirm that, yes, they are, I get (Every.Single.Time.), "Wow, you've really got your hands full!"

Like this is something I haven't noticed. So my standard reply is, "They keep me busy." Which is a polite way of saying, "Just because you couldn't handle it doesn't mean I can't."

And then yesterday, I got this one: "Four boys? Gonna try for a girl next?" Let's examine the idiocy of this question. Was anyone out there aware that, barring expensive procedures, we could actually CHOOSE? Holy cow, how did I miss this?

1. So, in short, yes, I am busy. So is my friend who has four girls. Kids are work.
2. Four kids is not so many. I know lots of people with more.
3. You cannot decide ahead of time what you're having, boy or girl.
4. No, we are not having any more.
5. I love being the mom of all boys.
6. Yes, occasionally I wish for a little girl to dress in pink and TKW's tutus.
7. However, I would not trade one of my boys for her.
8. And overall, my life is actually easier because all my kids are one gender.

Any questions? Next time you see someone with kids of all one gender, especially if it's three or more, say something intelligent. Like, "You are so lucky!" Those are the comments that make my day. Because, yeah, I am.

EDIT: And now I see that I was supposed to put something in my actual hand. Oh well. That's what happens when you look at the assignment on Friday morning.

SPF - Happy Second Birthday!

This week, in celebration of two years of SPF, Kristine is taking us back to the beginning. The very first SPF was the inside of the refrigerator. This week, we're to show our refrigerator, along with a self-portrait indicating the number 2.

So here I am in front of my refrigerator. I spend a lot less time here than I used to. I have now lost 40 pounds! Fifteen more and I will no longer be considered "overweight."

And of course, the number 2 when used in conjunction with the word refrigerators prompts me to use both of my refrigerators for this special birthday edition of SPF. This is my upstairs one.

So, did you play?

SPF - Stuff

Kristine wants us to gather a pile of stuff that speaks to who we are. I am clearly a mass of confusion, but here we go.
Okay, just the fact that I had to carefully arrange this stuff is very telling. Everything here is representative of many things. First we have my laptop. Obviously for blogging and email, but also for Bible study, writing, digital scrapping, and game playing. Then we have assorted DVDs. The one with the oval things that looks like an old record player is the Monkees Season 1. This represents all the tv I watched as a kid and teenager, not just the Monkees. Then we have The Little Mermaid: I love Disney animation. And of course Pirates and MIB sort of represent my current taste in movies. Oh, and the giant Star Wars across the top - this was taken under our Star Wars foosball table.

Then we have a picture of me with Hubby, representing my marriage of course, but also my kids because they wouldn't be here otherwise! There's a picture of me with Rockapella, because I didn't have any CD cases handy. In the back right is my makeup case. And then the books, just to show that my tastes run from Shakespeare to romance novels and everything in between. I am sure I left something important out, but you get the general idea.

So, did you play?

SPF - Holy...

Kristine's assignment this week is Holy. No, that didn't come out right. The assignment itself isn't holy, but we're supposed to find a picture to represent Holy. Does that make sense? Okay.

There are so many directions I could go with this, but here is what I chose.

This is my 42" television. It died. Now, fortunately we bought an extended warranty on it, so I just called up the warranty people. This was four weeks ago. First I had to go through the whole receipt and read all the numbers on it.

"And how much did you pay for the television?"
"Um, $250." It was on clearance. Somebody returned it because it had a problem. Apparently those people never heard of manufacturer's warranties.
"Really? $250?"
"Yeah."

So they send somebody out. He says he needs to order a part. But since this is the same part that was bad when we first bought it, he thinks Samsung might replace the television for us. Cool!

Three weeks later, I find out that the part we need is not made anymore. The warranty people are going to have to replace the television. At this point, I'm thinking what if they only give us our $250 back? Or what if they give us a $250 television? So they called on Wednesday with the model number of the tv they are going to send us. It's a Sony, it's 50", and it's REALLY nice.

But then, the woman on the phone says, "Or we can send you a replacement check for $1895."

And that's where the "Holy...!!!" comes in, folks.

They are sending us a check for $1900 (she's rounding up for us). For a tv we paid $250 for. And we've already decided we're going to get a nice multimedia projector instead of a television, so we can have a giant 11' picture if we want to. Those are generally around $1000. What about the rest of the money, you ask? We're going to Disney World! I mean, we were already planning to, but this will help pay for it!

Life lesson - When buying open box or returned merchandise, always, always, ALWAYS buy the extended warranty!

SPF - Behind

This week's SPF theme from Kristine is "Behind." At first I thought about telling you to see Wednesday's picture. That's the cutest little behind around here. But then, there are other meanings of the word, so I thought about it and this is what I came up with.
I am behind on my scrapbooking. This is the last page I did and I did it two months ago. And this is about the only thing I scrapped from last year. I'm really, really far behind. In my two year old's album, I've gotten all the way up to when he came home from the hospital. Really. Far. Behind.

So did you play? Have a great weekend!

SPF - Two

Kristine's theme this week is Two.

This is my two year old at the park yesterday. We decided to go enjoy the sunshine and warm weather. Even my oldest son, who is always cold, thought it was nice and warm yesterday. And since we can go during the day when everyone else is in school, there were only a few preschoolers there. I thought I would sit and read a book, but the two year old loved this spiral sliding board, and the only way for him to get up to it was for me to lift him. So that's what I did. Over and over and over again. I think we all had fun!

So, did you play?

SPF - Letters

Kristine's assignment this week is Your Letters. Open to interpretation, of course. Well, last week I said to Cheeky that I was glad I wasn't the only one who kept all her old letters. And I fully intended to show them to you. What I didn't count on was the sheer amount of stuff currently stored in front of said letters in the closet.
See the box back there behind the snowflakes and next to the garland? That's one of my letter boxes. I have several. I used to have multiple penpals, and not just when I was a kid. I wrote to many of these women well into my twenties. I guess I stopped around the time I had my first son. Who has time to write letters when you've got a baby who nurses 23 1/4 hours a day?

Anyway, my penpals were all over the place. Some I met and some I didn't. We always had some silly thing in common, like the Monkees (remember, this was the 80s - the big 20th anniversary reunion tour of the Monkees), but we wrote about whatever was happening in our lives at the time. I used to get these little friendship books in some of the letters - they were usually 3x5 or smaller booklets in which people who wanted still more penpals would write their address and answer a few questions about themselves. They were kind of like a meme, except on paper. And then if you saw someone interesting, you could write to them. Unless they put "NNP" next to their name - No New Pals.

I think blogging is kind of like the new version of penpals, don't you? Anybody else out there have tons of penpals in the past?

So, did you play?

SPF - Luggage

Kristine's assignment this week is our luggage. So here it is.
This is the luggage we use most often, though we've got a bunch of other suitcases sitting around.

So, who has ever gone to the dentist to get a filling replaced and ended up with a root canal? I did that yesterday. The dentist didn't know the old filling was touching the nerve until he cleaned it out. To his credit, I didn't feel a thing, and he didn't tell me he was doing a root canal until he finished, so I wasn't sitting there panicking. Afterward, he said he didn't know how I could have lived with it that long.

"You must have a very high pain threshold," he said.

"I've had four kids," I replied. Three of them without any pain medication. What do you think?

So, did you play?

SPF - Left over

This week's SPF theme is "left over." Now, as you may remember, I'm trying to lose weight. But where, exactly, did all this weight come from? Most of it is LEFT OVER from having babies. Four of them. Someone once told me that every pound you gain over thirty is yours to keep, and I did the numbers. She wasn't far off. I ended up weighing about 60 pounds more than I did before kids. That's a lot of leftovers.

However, I am happy to report that I just hit the thirty pounds lost mark earlier this week. That puts my goal weight only 20 pounds away! And to illustrate this, a picture of me wearing my rings, which I had not worn since before baby #3. Hopefully I can get rid of the rest of my leftovers soon!

Did you play?

SPF - Something red

Kristine's assignment this week is to photograph something red. Okay, let's see what I find around the house.

This is a sweater my SIL knitted for my two year old. She does beautiful work, huh? Unfortunately, he must have caught his sleeve on something, so it started to unravel. C, if you're reading this, bring your needles next time you come!

And what is this oddly-familiar-looking red yarn the cat's attacking? When I tried to put the sweater back where I had it, this is what happened! Um, C, you might want to bring extra yarn, too.

So, did you play?

SPF - Buttons

Kristine's assignment this week was buttons. Any kind of buttons.
See? He's got buttons on his coat.

And before you ask, yes, I drew this. I used charcoal. Yes, I did it freehand, using a picture on a McDonald's Arch Card as reference. No, it's not perfect, but I could spend way too much time trying to make it perfect, so I already sprayed it with sealant and called it done. It probably took about two hours, but I'm not entirely sure because I didn't do it all at once; I did it in the moments of time between when I would call one of the boys to come into the schoolroom (I homeschool for those who don't know) and when they actually came. I did this to demonstrate to them that they do not, in fact, come right away when I call them. I think I made my point.

So, did you play?