Over Christmas Vacation Bug and I had a few adventures. First we went to the annual bible conference we always go to with my family. It was really nice but not very photogenic so I have no photos to share. I take that back. I did take quite a few instagrams in the hotel:

We love hotels. Especially this one. The beds are always so nice and white and fluffy.

After the conference we had some time before we had to be home so I looked up local points of interest on my handy dandy smart phone and saw that the Hollywood sign was only fifteen minutes away. I’ve always wanted to see it up close. Unfortunately, you can’t actually get very close but it was a fun adventure anyway.

It was a beautiful day. As my Aunt was telling me earlier, January is Southern California’s best kept secret. We always have the best weather in January.

We had a nice walk around the lookout spot.

The view was amazing outside of the hazy smog.

After I was sure I had secured every possible touristy photo possible we headed home. But not without first stopping for lunch in Pasadena!

We ate at this really delicious French crepe place. It was pretty fancy and a bit out of our budget but sooo much better than fast food which was what we’d find along the rest of our route home. I love mother-daughter lunches.

No, I didn’t eat all that. I took half of it home and had it for breakfast the next day!

Service was authentically slow so we had lots of time to goof around and take photos, which I actually enjoy a lot.

Then gelato for Bug for desert! It was so pretty in this gelato shop. The light was reflecting off the buildings across the street and flooding the store through their big windows.

This cute couple really caught my attention but I didn’t want to freak them out taking too many photos.

So I was sneaky about it!

I could have stayed all day taking photos but because I had parked in a public parking lot and given the guard my keys, I was too nervous to leave my laptop in the car and therefore was stuck carrying it around with me. So that with my camera and my giant purse…it was a bit cumbersome. After a few blocks of me taking photos we headed back to the car and home.

Pray for me. I fly home today.

While I’m here posting a quickie, I might as well tout my review posts again. There’s the tea one, it’s still going and then of course Spikey and Weebles! Don’t miss your chance to win some extra funds

This morning I woke up and everything was yellow outside. Bethany‘s yard is surrounded by several maple trees and they decided to shed their leaves all at the same time it seems.

Above is her back patio on Tuesday.

And here it is on Wednesday! Crazy!

Okay. Enough flipping out about fall color from me. I’m sure this is all very old hat to everyone else. But I will share some more pictures because I just can’t help myself.

Bethany’s backyard is very long as you can see. It’s turned into a leafy wonderland to be explored by Bug and Annalie in their boots and umbrellas.

And me.

Gotta run!

No matter where you are or what you’re going through, there’s always time for pottery painting. That’s my motto.

OMSH took us to a little pottery-painting studio about an hour away from her town. It was quaint and cute and totally worth the drive.

Even Pink Kitty came. She goes everywhere Bug goes these days which might explain why she’s looking a little worse for wear. That poor cat.

The other day Bug was off doing something in OMSH’s master bathroom. She loves that bathroom because it’s big, it has lots of mirrors and it has a pretty pink rug on the floor. A perfect princess bathroom by Bug standards. Anyway, Bug kept calling for me to bring her a towel and I was a bit annoyed with her because I was working on my computer in the schoolroom, and why oh why would she need a bath towel? She wasn’t taking a bath.

“But I’m giving Pink Kitty a bath!” she hollered at me.

“You’re what?!!”

First of all she knows she’s not supposed to give Pink Kitty a bath because we’ve been through this before and real baths for stuffed cats equal crunchy stuffed cats later. Second of all I didn’t hear the water running. This was not going to be good.

“I’m giving Pink Kitty a bath with my spit!” she finally clarified. Duh.

Spit might have something to do with why Pink Kitty isn’t as fluffy as she used to be. Good thing she is machine washable is all I can say. Ew!

So anyway painting was super fun. Pretty much anything is fun with the OMSHes. They are their own entertainment. The kids have all kinds of inside jokes and they break out into song every time anyone says anything remotely near a lyric of a pop song. I am never that fun. Bug is going to be bored out of her socks when we have to go home. Good thing we have a trip to Washington D.C. planned right after this!

Maybe the kids get their entertaining sense of humor from their mom.

Comedy aside, I had a really good time painting. I’m happiest when I’m creating. This is a mug I painted with a little squeeze bottle with a needle tip on the end. They’re called mosquito writers, I think. I’ve never used them before and found them pretty challenging, but they’re way better than a fat ugly paintbrush which was my only other choice since I left my special fine-tip brushes at home. I hate it when I do that. But I loved using these mosquito writers. The line is a little wobbly but I kinda like it. The painting is of the OMSH family. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it gets fired.

I also painted this little raincoat girl. I painted this one first and accidentally used a thicker-tipped squeeze bottle so the line is a lot thicker. But I still like it. I’m going to put it in my shop when it’s fired if anyone wants to buy it.

Bug painted a pink plate with flowers on it, of course. I should have taken pictures of it but I didn’t. Sorry.

OMSH painted a coffee mug that says, “Suck It Up,” which I thought was pretty funny, since it’s a COFFEE MUG! Hahahaha! I think the OMSHes are rubbing off on me.

And then we yeehawed all the way home.

And that’s just what they’ll do!

One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!

In other news, I have one last Share Your Story Post up on my review site all about pumpkin muffins and morning traditions! Last chance to win $100 from Blogher!

I haven’t blogged in so long you probably thought I died. I bet you thought that big fat Pop-Tart haunted mansion from my last old moldy post fell on me and killed me dead. I can just see my avocado green and black striped witch tights sticking out from underneath the house like the wicked witch of the West.

Nope. I’m still alive. Some days barely.

I have actually been buried in work, which is a good thing because I’ve finally decided to ramp up my freelance business and become an official working mom. I’m not working in an office or anything but I am rocking and rolling on some big freelance jobs. I hope to have my business website up in a week or so. I’ll share that with you when it happens. It’s pretty exciting. Not a mind-blowing design or anything but at least it will be something so my prospective clients can see what I really do. If you know anyone looking for a graphic illustrator, put the word out for me. I’ll love you forever!

In other news, I am still in Texas! As you would expect, I’m picking up the drawl and people are starting to think I’m a local yokel. I love it here. The food, the people, the great expanses of green space…if I weren’t so attached to California, I’d move here in a heartbeat.

Bug has been having a blast. She thinks she’s the OMSH family’s long-lost fourth kid. They play all sorts of crazy complicated games while I work away on my laptop in the schoolroom. I have to admit it tickles my heart to see her sneaking around with the gang, plotting elaborate spy games while armed with a pink hat, a pink puffy skirt and a Nerf gun. It’s a very refreshing sight since I’m about as sick as one can get of playing kitty and being named “Flower.”

“Stick ‘em up! Give me all your money!”

What? The pink skirt and pink hat aren’t intimidating enough? (They are actually pink, not red. Forgive my poor photography.) How about that red laser beam piercing your forehead? Just kidding around. Isn’t her hat cute? Sonja made it for Bug to match mine because now that I have a new red hat Bug thinks her old blue one is just not girly enough. She loves her new hat and even though it hasn’t been a bit cold here she wears it around the house regularly.

I know these pictures are not the best quality. That’s what I get for backlighting people and shooting in low light but I thought they told a good story. I just wanted to let you know we are still alive and kicking. Or at least Bug is. I’m sitting my butt in OMSH’s funky green office chair and cranking on freelance work.

I hope to have more tales for you soon! In the meantime don’t miss my Bowly Bowl post (yes, I wrote an entire post about bowls) for your chance to win $100 before I close up the comments on Monday!

It’s a regular six-ring circus around here!

Just kidding. Even though the Omsh’s are loads of fun—they are loud and crazy and loving like nobody’s business—I’m finding real peace out here. I think I needed to just stop and listen and figure out where my life was going. I’m almost ready to go back, but not quite. I thought staying for ten days was way too long. I thought for sure they would be sick of me by day three. But now that my trip is winding up, I don’t think ten days is enough.

Bug and I took a spontaneous trip to Texas this last Wednesday. We just up-in-a-flurry got on a plane and flew off to my good friend OMSH’s for some good old-fashioned Texas-style TLC. It’s very green and peaceful here.

When we arrived after our two-hour drive from the airport and pulled into OMSH’s driveway, Bug said with her eyes popping out of her head, “It looks like you live in a forest!” We’ve never really seen green spaces like this outside of camping. I assured Bug that there were no “big bad wolfs” but there are plenty of deer. Every morning we watch families of mother and baby deer make their rounds through OMSH’s backyard. It’s like she lives at the Wild Animal Park except there are no buses full of people driving by.

Since this was a last-minute trip and we sort of sprung ourselves on OMSH with very little warning, we’re trying really hard not to disrupt her normal routine of homeschooling. It’s fascinating to watch them in action. I love her schoolroom.

It’s so bright and cheery everywhere. It makes me want to pull up a chair, open up my laptop and work work work.

So yesterday I did. I got more work done in one day than I have in the last month. It was amazing. OMSH let her young son Kenny sneak out of some of his lessons so he could keep Bug occupied playing for hours and hours. Bug has been in heaven. All these kids to play with! She’s going to cry real tears when we have to go home.

They made a massive tent in Meredith’s room (which is ALL PINK, much to Bug’s delight) and played some complicated counting dart game that I have no idea what the rules were. There have been Legos, puzzles, coloring, chasing the dogs and then outside playtime of course.

Thank you Texas, you’re just what we needed.

* * *

In other news I have another Share Your Story post up on my review blog. Please head on over and comment! I’ve got to give that $100 to somebody. It might as well be you!

Not too much to say here… Just the usual getting ready for a trip which is tricky when you are a freelancer and don’t really have a vacation schedule. Bug was very excited. The excitement wore off about three hours into our trip. I packed Where’s Waldo books, movies, coloring books and snacks but nothing really fought off the awfulness that is being trapped in a 5-point harness car-seat. I think we’re going to have to move her up to the booster seat soon even though she only weighs 31 pounds. Poor kid is a small fry. She’s probably going to technically still fit a car seat when she’s in high school.

Also, the lake felt wonderful. We went swimming with Bug’s older cousins the first day. It was a blast. They showed Bug how to cannonball off the dock but she never quite got it.

The next day Toby’s other brother and sister-in-law came up and showed us how real rednecks party. It was pretty fun and crazy which sort of made me feel like I was at Lake Havasu, which I’ve never been to. It also made me feel like I was in high school again which was sort of weird with a four-year-old in tow but she thought it was pretty fun.

Sunday Bug and I woke up early and explored the woods while everyone else slept. I taught her how to shoot the dinglebop things off the top of weeds. My sketch is the best way I can describe that. Later we attempted to go out to the Red Neck Yacht Club again but Bug got stung by a hornet on the dock and that pretty much ruined that. She was pretty tough though.

That evening her brave Uncle Anthony busted up the dock and attempted to drown the hornets’ nest with a big stick but they kept coming back.

The next day Toby was on a mission. He bought about five cans of some sort of bug poison, dressed up in the thickest sweatshirt he could find (which happened to be something black with hearts on it that his sister-in-law had left behind) and sprayed them one by one until he killed most of them, or at least what he thought was most of them.

But the hornets came back. So Toby spent another three hours swatting them with a broom. That eventually pissed them off enough to make them seek shelter elsewhere I guess because we were able to use the dock after that with very little hornet dive-bombing.

I also caught three fish right in a row. That was pretty cool.

And the bugs… oh the bugs. We discovered dozens of new species every day.

Everyday we swam and hung out by the lake. There wasn’t much else to do. It was lovely.

I ran out of sugar so I used maple syrup in my coffee. It’s not that great.

On Friday we had a visitor. He creeped us out by driving up the driveway, getting out and looking at something, then getting back in his truck without saying hi, and driving away. He didn’t even look at us. Then ten minutes later we heard a bunch of gunshots and I thought for sure he was out to murder us. But it turned out he was just an inspector guy that the family was expecting. Silly us. We never did figure out what the gunshots were from.

I DID swim all the way across the lake at one point. I was so proud of myself. I’d seen a 72-year-old woman do it the day before so I knew I could but when I was halfway there the wind picked up and Toby got nervous. Apparently I’m a strong swimmer because it was no big deal. I could do that everyday if I had the chance.

That’s pretty much it. Just swimming and boating and more swimming and more boating and drinking and eating and more drinking and being a mother while everyone else is drinking way too much. You know how that goes. It was fun though. I think it was good for all of us.

As you can see we had a pretty good time at the lake. I don’t think I’m going to back-blog it like I have other years but I did sketch the whole time so after I dig my scanner out from under the pile of un-opened mail, I might scan those and put them up.

If I had to pick a theme for this year’s trip it would NOT be fishing like it was last year. We did fish but we only caught bluegills. I would probably have to say that getting a kick-ass tan would be this year’s theme. It wasn’t intentional…I do have to worry about skin cancer and all but when you spend all day out on a lake basking in the sun, a few rays are bound to break through the 50 SPF sunblock. I think I have FINALLY gotten rid of my usual all-year-around farmer’s tan.

And Bug got stung by a hornet. But other than that it was just pretty much your average fun family trip at the lake!

It’s good to be back. Now if only I could figure out a way to ignore all these dishes, the pesky deadlines, an empty refrigerator, two hungry mouths that need to be fed and all the other thousands of household chores that need my attention…