stickyfeathers

thoughts for thursday.

i can barely think straight i'm so mad at typepad.  it ate this post as well.  bastard.

so, last weekend matt went out with some friends.  he met one of our friend's fiance, who told matt she felt like she knew him and tucker from reading my blog.  atleast this was matt's version of the conversation.  i asked matt if he thought that was weird at all.  all he did was groan (as in, i don't care what you do but i want to go to sleep right now so leave me alone).  yeah, he could care less about all this blog stuff.

it got me thinking though. 

in this post, random people are those who are not exactly friends, but they are not strangers either.  in my case, they probably live or have lived in the same town as me...but we don't talk on a normal basis.  kwim?  eh, it's not really a good definition but i think you get the point.

in the past, there have been random people that have come up to my friends and talked to them about something we had done.  until my friend's realized where they had read about our escapades, they just figured these random people were stalking us in the bushes somewhere.  there have also been times when i go to tell my parents something and they have told me, 'yeah, i read that on your blog'.  whoops.  guess high speed internet really is high speed.  it's beat me to the punch a time or two.

however, just because there are random people reading, i don't really censor what i talk about.  if i wanted to share about how i remove the pimple off my forehead in my self portraits, i would.  if i didn't want to share how we pulled off a sweet prank last week, i wouldn't.  everything gets filtered at the fingertips.  i have no worries or regrets about my blog content.

so, back to the thoughts i want your feedback on:

1. have random people come up to you IRL and talked to you about something on your blog?  i've had this experience a few times.  i actually like when random people tell me about things they've seen on my blog.  usually it's a compliment of some sort (i love your blog or your photography is amazing or you have the cutest kid EVER).  okay, i'm really emphasizing what they say, but roll with me here.
2. do you censor what you have on your blog because the random people are reading?  something you would feel safe sharing with a friend or even a stranger, but not those 'inbetween' people?  um, i guess to some point i do have a censor.  i don't talk about my marriage much.  i don't talk about work at all.  i don't talk about my aunt greta and her crazy husband bert - but that's because i don't have an aunt greta.  ha - gotcha!
3. does your hubby care what you share on your blog?  um, i think i covered this. 

oh, and all your random people that are reading right now, leave me a comment so you are not a stranger anymore!  then we can become bff's and hang out at the lounge on saturday nights and have jag bombs together.  or not.  :)

other thoughts for thursday bloggers include:  kristi, heather and denise.

ps. this post sucked to rethink/retype all over.  ergh.

well, i was feelin' good.

i just had a freakin' post done and typepad chewed it up and swallowed it.  jerk.

i had told you about how good i was felling tonight.  i had a ton of stuff done around the house.  it was clean for one thing.  everything from laundry to floors and i also had things ready for the weekend.  yep, i told you that my weekend starts tomorrow after work.  don't hate me.

i told you that matt mowed the grass last night and that it made me happy.  yeah, a nice fresh cut lawn makes me smile.  come on, admit it, you like it when your yard looks good too!  i wish i could have a lawn like a golf course.  really.  i think next weekend i'm going to go buy some sweet kentucky bluegrass seed to throw on the lawn.  that and about 15 bags of fertilizer.  it needs it.  bad.

i also mentioned that i never really updated you on all the fun we had last weekend.  i didn't take any pictures, well, i took a few.  i have one of the bride taking a jag bomb in the parking lot.  i have a video of the groom taking off the bride's garter.  i don't have one of me taking my first jag bomb ever.  thank god for that.  jenn has some sweet shots - she should update her blog soon and share them with us! 

oh, and i told you i hope to write my thoughts for thursday post tonight - its an interesting one!

a night outside.

last night i took a break from being a slave to my computer and we went outside until the mosquito's nearly drained our system of blood.  i took some shots of tucker, however the kid still refuses to even glance in my direction when i have my camera out (trust me, i've tried allllllll the tricks).  i got a couple shots i like.  this one i decided to play around with more than the others (i used a bunch of brenda's actions).  fun stuff.  you can see bigger versions of the shots here.

we played trucks, cleaned up inside the camper, and rode in the little tykemobile.  it was nice to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather.  i hope this weather lasts for a while!

with a little bit of edge (love the urban processing action):

and in black & white:

so, which one is your favorite? 

wanna get away?

when i seen this video for the first time, i instantly wanted to copy and paste myself into it!  damn, they look like they are having a lot of fun.  i wanted to share the video here on the blog, but i guess metro station ain't having it.  piss me off.  i am LOVING their song 'shake it'.  just hit the link and watch the video.  then you'll love it too.

anyways...

if there was a music video you could paste yourself into, what would it be and why?  come on people, let's have some fun today!  would you want to show trace adkins how you could honky tonk badonkadonk?  or would you rather make love in this club with usher?  or maybe you would get the dirt off your shoulder with jay-z?  i'm sorry, but if you would be in any of weird al yankovic's music video's - we can't be friends anymore. 

now drop your comment like it's hot.

the goof troop.

tucker woke me up again this morning an HOUR before my alarm should go off.  i just love that.  so, here i am at the computer.  i found this picture that was taken on my birthday a few weeks ago.  even though the quality isn't perfect, the shot cracks me up.  there's my brother in the front with his dog, oakley pirched on his arm, and tucker and my mom in the background.  tucker looks like he's singing the opera sans teeth.  i took a bunch of these shots, but this one is my favorite.

this weekend was a lot of fun.  i'll post about that later when my brain wakes up. 

good morning baby.

even though tucker woke me up at 6am, i'm going to make a quick list of reasons this is a good morning. 

• i see blue skies and when we went outside the sun was so warm! 
• tucker is cute, even if he is cranky from getting up to early.
• matt is going to mow the lawn today - it will look so nice!
• i can hear the birds outside.
• i finally watched ps. i love you last night and it's in the mail today so we can get the next movie, juno.  i am so behind the times with movies.  seriously.  oh, and by the way, my new boyfriend is gerard butler.  seriously.  he is delish.
• laundry is going.  dishes are put away.
• saturday morning means saturday night is that much closer!  :)

so if there is anyone reading today, what is making your morning good?

flummery.

i've got nothing but flummery for you today folks.  random nonsense from inside my head.  sit back, grab a cookie and a glass of milk and enjoy.

• we are finally getting some nice weather here.  summer only lasts about 5.4 weeks here in minnesota. 
• tucker is still without the binkie.  however, this kid has managed to find every single 'lost binkie' in our house since we took it away.  last night he found one...under the fridge!  ha!
• on saturday, tucker is sleeping over at grandpa and grandma's house so matt and i can go out to carrie jo and joe's wedding reception.  we've known these two forever and they tied the knot at the beginning of the month in vegas!  congrats to them!  i can't wait to dance the night away!
• we bought my dad's old truck ('98 chevy 2500 diesel) for matt to use to drive to work and haul crap around when he is working on projects.  it will be nice that we can park our new truck and he won't have to drive it down to the plant everyday.  he filled up the tank last night and it cost him $140.  sure, it's a 36 gallon tank and it will last a long time but GAWD.
• there have been burglaries happening all over in town and it's starting to really creep me out.  when i worked at the sheriff's office i was never this creeped out.  nonetheless i hope they catch the little bastards that are on the crime spree. 
• i have an entire plate full of photography type things i am working on.  shooting, proofing, ordering.  lather, rinse, repeat. 
• i need to make some of this on sunday.  yum!
• we have a neighbor that is doing some odd things.  this, deserves its own post for sure.  stay tuned for that doozy.
• i'm missed the last two episodes of the bachelorette.  aaaah!  oh well, i skipped the first one i missed entirely, then i watched all but the last 15 minutes of the last episode.  i was tivoing it and matt changed the channel on me.  really - why do men do that?  it's not like a show had just started on another station or something - it was 845!  just leave it on my show.  this is like SUPER IMPORTANT stuff here!  :)

i hope all of you get to enjoy a great weekend!  i know i plan on it.

thoughts for thursday.

today, i'm going to discuss the wonderful subject of potty training.  warning: longest post ever about potty training!  but really, this is something i think about quite a bit.  man, i even talked about it here, and tucker wasn't even two yet (and obviously we didn't get things going after the new year)!  i think i think about this too much.  oh well, here we go. 

here are my thoughts on potty training my kid:  tucker is almost 27 months old.  i work out of the home fulltime and i certainly don't expect our nanny to have to be the one to train him.  i know it is going to take work on both our parts, but i'm at the point where i think he needs to be ready.  i'm not sure he is at that point yet. 

we have both a small potty chair, and a potty chair insert for our 'big' toilet.  he sits on his small potty chair when we are in the bathroom.  there have been a few times when he has asked to sit on the big potty, but he just sits there.  he's never went to the bathroom when he's been on it.  the other day, i seen him grunting and i rushed him into the bathroom hoping to make it in time.  i took off his diaper and there was a little turd.  i hoped he would have 'finished' on the potty, but no such luck.  he just wanted to get down. 

last week when my mom was here watching him, she put underwear on him in the morning.  she would take him in to sit on the potty, but that's all he'd do.  sit there.  he did pee in his pants and he didn't even seem to care.  if he was ready, shouldn't that bother him to be wet?  maybe, maybe not.

i know he sometimes will tell us when he has a dirty diaper, other times he won't.  when he goes poop in his diaper he wants to 'flush it in da toylit'.  i think he's actually only watched himself pee once - when he stood up in the tub and let 'er fly.  does any of this matter?  i don't know.

at his last doctor's appointment, his doctor said there were three things that you should not push (sleeping, eating, and potty training).  she said, they will eat enough and when they are hungry so don't worry about them starving.  she said that sleeping issues work themselves out (i didn't get into this with her at all, but she said it and well, i know they will).  then, she told me that when her son was little, he did not want to be trained.  she said that he was about to start preschool and they wouldn't take him if he wasn't potty trained.  she told her son that if he didn't learn to go potty where he should, that he couldn't go to preschool and she said in a week, he was trained.  it was time and he had a motivator.  she told me that a lot of people thought that since she was a doctor it was horrible that she had not potty trained her son yet.  she told me that you cannot and should not push them if they are not ready.  okay, maybe that's not word for word what she said, but close.  so am i wrong in waiting until i think tucker is ready?  we talk about going to potty on the big potty nearly every time i change him.  i will ask him if he wants to go sit on the toilet and if he does, we go sit on it.  i try to encourage him to do his business, but if he wants to get off, then we're done.  i don't make him sit there or go back if he doesn't want to.  maybe i should be pushing him? 

i know that my mom has said that both my brother and i were trained at tucker's age, but she was home with us!  i think it makes a difference.  i don't expect that ashley is going to have to potty train my kid.  sure, she'll be a big part of things, but i think i should take a few days to really get things going.  i'm sure i could get lots of thoughts on this from just the mom's in my life, but i know what they are already.  they've told me.  sometimes i feel like a failure because he's not trained yet.  do any of you feel that way?  is there a magic age that it should happen by?  i'm fairly positive that tucker will be trained (or mostly trained) by the time he is 3 (9 months away).  i don't know a lot of other little boys his age so i have nobody to compare him to, you know?  girls are said to train faster anyways so i can't really use that as a gauge can i?  eh. 

i know that if my dad is reading this right now, he would ask me, 'why are you worrying about this?' because he says that about all my 'mom concern posts'.  :)

so, i would love to hear about your experiences with potty training.  if you have toddlers, are they trained or no?  how did you do it?  when do you plan to train them if they haven't been trained yet?  is this something that is a big concern for you?  do you think that kids need to be pushed or do you think they need to be 'ready'?  this week we made the decision that the bink is gone for good.  so, is this the direction i should take with potty training or do you have to follow your kids que?  why can't there be a switch underneath the left armpit or something that you can finally turn off at age 2 and the diapers go away forever?  aahhhh, dreams.

seriously, sorry about the longest post ever, but this is something that is always on my mind!  i'm thanking you in advance for your comments!  after you leave me a comment, go visit all the other tft bloggers today:  nicole, jessica, denise, kim, dana, and kristi.

he's going cold turkey.

you see this guy...

...yeah, he's cute.  for the next few days, he might be a bit cranky too.  tonight he gave up the binkie cold turkey.  he fell asleep without it last night and i had visions of how awesome life would be without the bink.  i got excited.  then at 5am this morning, he woke up asking for it and i caved.  i was so mad at myself for doing that, but dang.  so, this evening when he wanted it, i did something drastic.  i cut the end off.  i gave it to him and we talked about how it was broken.  he put it in his mouth a few times only to spit it out again saying it was 'broken'.  he hasn't asked for it since.  wish us luck people.  wish. us. luck.

by the way, it has been entirely too long that he has been able to have this at nap time and bed time, but i've just caved and took the easy route and let him have it.  god, this is so going to rock after he gets through the rough patch.

almost a guinness world record...

this past weekend, our little town attempted to put itself on the map.  the goal: to break the guinness world record for the largest atv parade.  it was the 25th anniversary of the all-terrain vehicle association of minnesota (atvam). 

let me tell you people, we came damn close.  early in the day, i heard we had far succeeded it, later on, i heard we were about 60 participants short.  bummer.  currently, the harlan county ridge runners in evarts, kentucky hold the record for longest atv parade.  the club set the record at 1138 atv's in the summer of 2006.  i think we had enough atv's but somehow some of them were disqualified.  argh!  oh well, it was a fun weekend nonetheless.

on saturday, jenn, tucker and i headed down to the pancake feed at the fire hall.  tucker had no interest in eating, he only wanted to look at the firetrucks.  derek was nice enough to show him around while we ate.  they had nearly 300 people that came for breakfast.  it was delish!

we ran home and cleaned up and got ready for the big parade.  we headed downtown to get a spot to watch things.  we found carrie jo and hope and stood by them.  it wasn't long and jenn and jen met up with us.  we watched the parade which was nearly two hours long!  insane!  wheeler, after wheeler, after wheeler!  when i asked tucker if he was having fun, all he could say was, 'WOW'!

here are some random pictures from the day.  the first shot is me and my little dude.  the second is one shot out of about 30 i took of the atv parade.  i also got shots of every single person we knew in the parade including our brothers, my sil, my dad and sister, and a ton of our friends.  the third shot is tucker watching all the wheelers.  the last shot is of the helicopter that was giving rides in town all day.  yes, you heard right, they actually were giving helicopter rides all day around town.  let me tell you, this town was in the big time this weekend.  we had helicopter rides.  :)

that evening, matt and i went out to dinner at the crossings.  then, we hit up the new lounge.  oh. my. god.  it does not even feel like you are in silver bay anymore!  the place is pimped out!  amazing!  and guess what - i have no pictures!!!  sorry to disappoint.  looks like i'll have to get some next weekend.  anyways, we had an awesome night with friends.  i took a few pictures, but i'll be keeping them in the vault.  :)