Does this make me look fat?

After 5 years of secrecy, Chad admitted something terrible to me.

Chad: Your pink robe is the ugliest thing you could possibly wear.

Jessica: What? Since when do you think that?

Chad: I’ve always thought that, I just never said anything.

Jessica: What?!!! I wear that thing ALL the time, how could you not tell me?

I was shocked. Why didn’t he ever say anything? I always put the pink robe on after I get out of bed.

He normally has no problem telling me his opinion, and we are always 100% honest with each other…well 95%. For example, I want him to tell me if he doesn’t like my shirt, or that I have a bugger in my nose. It doesn’t hurt my feelings; I want to know. (Exceptions are allowed during pregnancy….please lie your bum off and tell me how great I look)

‘Course, last month was a bit over the line. While we were playing Scattergories with the family he tells me I have a big zit on my face. “Wow, you have a big one comin’ there,” he says pointing at my cheek. Jess: “Oh yeah, like I didn’t notice. Thanks for pointing it out to everyone.” So then everyone has to be nice and pretend they never saw it. But who misses a volcano? Yeah, NOoooooooo one.

I later told him that if I perchance to have a landmark on my face, that I am already well aware of it, and he doesn’t have to inform me of its omnipresence. I KNOW IT’S THERE. I KNOW that YOU know it’s there. Let’s just pretend that zits are cool, okay?

Anyway, back to the robe.

Chad then elaborates on how awful the robe is, explaining that it looks like matted pink dog hair, and that I shouldn’t even give it to Goodwill because no one else should ever have to own the thing.

Sniffle. But……my robe!

So, I’ve taken to wearing PJ bottoms and a sweatshirt in the morning, and I try to only wear the robe when he’s not home. It’s so warm and soft. I know it's not the most flattering thing, but it's not as if I need to wear something glam to go with my raccoon-mascara morning face.

Wait a second. I just remembered that Chad has always wanted me to sew him footie pajamas with a bum flap. If he can wear that, I can wear the robe. I just need to figure out a pattern for the darn thing.

A farewell to the leaves

A few weeks ago, Jet and I went on an adventure to try to capture a rainbow of leaves. The leaves this year are more incredible to me than ever before. They're magnificent. I wanted to photograph ALL the colors of I could find, from cherry red, to burnt red, to rust, to amber, to hazelnut brown etc. So, I strapped Jet in the jogging stroller, and took my average ol' camera, and every time I saw an intense color, I stopped jogging and shot a few photos before Jet got squirmy, and then I jogged to the next one. I was quite impressed with myself at my ability to combine arts, mom-son bonding, exercise, and nature appreciation. I felt so invigorated when I was done because I was able to use my physical energy and creative energy. Uh-oh, I'm starting to sound like a new-age weirdypants. But, it was such a fun activity to do together. I think I'll do it again, but with another mission, maybe....textures, fungi, rust. We'll see.





POP!

I love how the leaves look like rose petals. (If I had a better camera, I would have made the big leaf clearer)


Getting rusty.







Barely hanging on



Surprisingly, one of my favorites is this pic of the brown leaves. I never realized what a warm, rich shade of brown newly dead leaves are. Newly dead? Ha, oxymoron.

Now, almost all the leaves are gone, and most of the colors around are flat gray and muted brown. Gee....winter is ugly without any snow. But, I'm sure there is plenty of beauty I haven't noticed.

Garage Life

Yes, I use that paw-print pillow. Yes, I know it's ugly. But I love it because I love reading in bed. It's so much better than propping up stacks of pillows. See those books on the table waiting for me? Bliss.

I just wanted to document our time in the garage, and show Hailey what her salon looks like these days. And, a big shout-out to the Durfees. Thank you so much for letting us live here!

Garage is a misnomer. We really live in a room within a garage. The room has heat, nice walls that have been painted a lovely shade of red, and carpet.

When we moved in, I told myself I wasn’t going to really decorate because I didn’t want the Durfees to think that we were getting all cozy and making ourselves at home, planning on outstaying our welcome for far too long. But, design got the better of me, and I couldn’t help myself. I had inspiration, and it’s just part of what I do as a person. I can’t not do it. Even if I only owned a mattress and dresser, and had no money, I would make a collage out of recycled newspaper and put it on the wall. I have to make things for the space I’m living in.

So, I made some bird wall decals from butcher paper that Chad’s lovely mother brought home for me from her work. Lindsay has a projector, so I borrowed that too. I traced the birds, cut ‘em out, and taped ‘em up. FREE. Hurrah.

The window in the garage isn’t double-paned, so I made curtains out of fleece blankets to help hold in heat. Hailey, I know these are your blankets. When I’m done, I just have to unstitch one line, and they are back to their old selves. (I used velcro for tiebacks. Tehe. I didn't want to sew anything)

Then I hung Hailey’s lamp. LOL. Hailey, I couldn’t help it. It’s the coolest, and it was just sitting there. I replaced the bulb for you : ) Using lamps changes the ambience in a room SO MUCH. It’s so much more relaxing than one big blaring light.

See that white thing in the bottom left corner? Jet's changing station!

In the real garage area, we have our dressers, pantry, and fridge. Jet loves to play with cans. He also loves to feed the dogs by hand. It’s kinda gross, I know, but he LOVES it. What’s the worst is that he loves to play in their water bowl. I have found him sitting in their water bowl with all his clothes on, or stomping in it with his shoes. He loves to put their food in the water too. He loves to dump their water out. Darn water bowl. I try to put their bowls out of reach when he’s out here, but sometimes I forget and I pay for it later.

After living here, and living in our last place (the single-wide) I have learned that we don’t need much to be comfortable. In fact, I like the simple/cheap life. During most of last year in LaPine, we found a big, new house to rent. But, it was too big. We barely spent time in the living room. We used the guest room a few times to host family. I hated our heating bill, and vacuuming. It was a beautiful house, but we didn’t need it. After that place, we moved to a single-wide trailer with lots of character. LOVED IT. I actually would love to have a murphy bed! Those are the kind that you push up into the wall. I’ve seen murphy beds that the “wall” (the part under the bed when the bed is down, and the wall when the bed is “put away”) has a table you can pull down. Ingenious! It’s a murphy table.

I have liked the smaller and older places we’ve lived in much better. I only want the amount of space I need otherwise it just feels empty. Then you feel like you need to buy more furniture to fill the place. Then you move to a smaller place, and you have all this superfluous crud. I can understand wanting to have a lot of room for the kids to play, but a 1 year old doesn’t need much. Plus, I like being able to spend our money on other things.

I think our society places way too much importance on houses. It doesn’t have to be this gorgeous, immaculate place to be a dream home. I think as long as its clean, kept-up, and designed how you like, then it can feel great and be a dream home for your family.

Spidey hangouts

The other morning, the fog was thick, and the frost was just starting to melt. I took the dogs on a morning walk along our usual forested path. Every single spiderweb had been frosted, their outlines popping against the background. Simultaneously, I felt amazed and eeksy. There were spiderwebs everywhere, scattered around every few feet. I couldn’t believe it. I had been there so many times, and had only noticed a few before. Now they surrounded me. Luckily, most of the webs seemed abandoned; probably because they smelled my sweet blood and were chasing after me. I eat way too many sweets.

Well, that day, I didn’t have my camera. So, I’ve been taking it with me in the mornings, trying to recapture all that wonder. But, there hasn’t been such a day since. These pics were the closest I could get, and I’m already behind since Halloween is over.

I could have cropped Dakota out of this photo, but I like to know that she was there. If it weren't for the dogs, I wouldn't have even been out there in the first place.