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I wish we were there already. Only 28 more hours to go....
My sister is getting married at the north pole I think.
I wrote about travel entertainment which doesn't require a plug or battery at the Buzz Off.
I would link to it but I don't have access to it here in the car but you should read it because I wrote it at 1 am.
Have a wonderful weekend.
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I mentioned while in Indianapolis we were going to head over to the Sausage Fest going on at a church in my brother's neighborhood.
My brother's friend is a member of the church and also on the Sausage Fest committee. He's committed to sausage you understand. The committee set out a slew of signs advertising the upcoming festival in the neighborhood surrounding the church. A few weeks later a meeting was called where committee members were absolutely shocked that all their Sausage Fest signs were just disappearing from the neighborhood.
The neighborhood which is adjacent to Butler University.
Another committee member said to George, my brother's friend, "Do you want to tell them what a Sausage Fest is?"
He declined.
That year the committee was equally as stunned when the t shirts from the event, featuring a dancing sausage holding an icy beer, sold out within hours of the event opening. Gee, they thought, these t shirts certainly are possible with the incoming class at the university. I guess they really want to be a part of the community!
Logan went to buy his t shirt on the opening night of the event, just in case they sold out early. Then we went to the event and it was just a nice little church fair with games and a moon walk and balloon art.
Max waited patiently in line and decided he'd like a sword.
The balloon table was inside the actual church building and next to a small flowing fountain of what seemed like holy water and as I stood there my eyes got big and I prayed God would forgive me for the impure thoughts I had as I watched an 11 year old twist a balloon into a giant sword.
With testicles.
Something tells me the Sausage Fest Committee is playing dumb on purpose.
New posts at The Buzz Off and Work It Mom. One of these posts was completed while I babysat my friend's three year old daughter. Three year olds ask a lot of questions and I had flashbacks to summers past when my ears used to bleed all day long.
At breakfast, while potential neighbors looked at the house up for sale next door.
Her: "Is she attractive?"
Me: "Uh....I don't know. She seems pretty plain."
Her: "I don't want someone hot living next door. I'll have to start giving blow jobs if that happens. I'm a good southern girl."
Logan: "Right because you're from the northern most point of Oakland county."
Her: "Yes. Right."
Gee, I love the free love atmosphere of the internet. Where, someone can just take your (copyrighted and trademarked) digital art and use it in their own article without a single mention of it's original context or owner.
Here is how the article ended in the original unedited piece.
I contacted the author as such:
"Hey I saw your piece at Suicide Girls (http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22146/) and would like to ask you to at the very least attribute my copyrighted and trademarked artwork to me, Melissa Summers @ Suburbanbliss.net.
Thanks so much.
Melissa"
I came home a couple hours later to find it attributed as follows.
Binky in a glass courtesy of Melissa Summers@Suburbanbliss.net
Here is the follow up attribution.
Because yes, I've copyrighted all binkies in a glass. You stick a binky into a coffee mug and expect to hear from my lawyers. Stick it in a high ball and that's war. The issue isn't exactly the binky in the glass it's that it's MY EXACT LOGO just stuck on top of an article totally unrelated to my website.
I love spending money on a US trademark for no good reason. Just steal my original logo and stick it on whatever you want! Why not! This is the free love internet. Here, I'll send my friend over to draw you your very own! Have at it Internet.
After sitting (fuming) on this for a few hours, something about the lack of understanding that the author had actually stolen my logo and used it on her article with no relation to my site didn't sit well with me so I emailed the editor of the piece directly.
I caught wind of my copyrighted and trademarked logo being used on an article at Suicide Girls. (http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22146/)
The attribution which was added at my request doesn't seem to entirely grasp the issue of actually stealing someone else's digital art and reusing it without attribution.
I'm pretty free with my trademark but after sitting on the issue for a few hours I have to ask that the artwork is entirely removed from your site.
I'm sure your staff can draw your own 'binky in a glass' or find a stock image to replace it.
Stealing isn't kind.
Melissa Summers
As of this morning at 10:55 the artwork remains. I'd like it removed.
Edit: It's been removed as of 3:30pm.
My internet is finally working. It's working because of about 50 different pieces of advice, so not unlike the house sale I can't really say which thing finally did it. Yesterday we had an advanced modem installed so that we could have a home phone line I still won't use. Somehow the change in modem and perhaps a replacement ethernet cord, allowed me to connect to our internet directly.
Logan attempted to get advice from a tech guy at work but this middle man approach was a terrible idea since when Logan asks for directions he typically hears this.
"Blah Blah Blah left somewhere and then blah blah blah. Oh look something shiny!"
He likes the overall message of things and not the specifics. Mr Armstrong was of great help and once I reset the Airport for the second time, suddenly it worked and this is why I hate computers. I did all this before, thanks to several helpful emails, and it didn't work. A week later I do the same thing and it works.
It's like algebra. Sometimes I do everything I'm supposed to and it works and other times I work the problem and it just doesn't. It's a crap shoot because I mostly have no clue what I'm doing.
Our weekend in Indianapolis was lovely as always. We went to the state fair where Logan and I were nearly killed on a fair ride. We saw the World's Largest Pig and they are not kidding and Logan and his partner took their kids to see the World's Biggest Boot.
On Saturday our next door neighbor noticed our garage door was open (we have openers! I programmed them!) and called another neighbor, who called another neighbor, who then called me. It all turned out to be some sort of signal glitch, but thankfully the neighborhood Garage Door Phone Tree is locked and loaded.
I couldn't help but laugh though. One day, in the old neighborhood, we were gone for around 10 hours and came home to find our back door (which inexplicably swung out, not in) wide open. Our cats were running in and out of the house likely thinking, "What the hell? Who left the door open?" No one knows for sure how long the door was open of course but when we pulled up our neighbors were sitting on their front porch in sight of our open back door and dark house.
No phone tree. I mean maybe we wanted our door wide open as if to let everyone know we wanted to be robbed blind.
I also got another phone call on Saturday from my sister who has a very painful ovarian cyst. This cyst is not part of the bridal party so if you'd like to wish it gone, feel free. The thing about my sister is that when this wedding planning started she said things like, "I'm not registering. I mean, what do I need plates for?"
And, "Whatever, I don't even think I want a wedding."
Somehow the Bridal Mafia has gotten to my poor sister because on the phone Saturday she started to cry when I asked her about the planning. "Well the flowers are screwed up. They were too expensive and now I'm going to have a stem of something and.....rocks.....and a stick.....or something." (She said, with disdain and disappointment barreling down the phone line.)
I reminded her she wanted a minimalist look and that stick is a twig and those rocks are very zen and guess what? I had three terra cotta pots planted with impatiens on my tables and it was still the happiest day of my life because I married the best guy for me.
I teased her a little more about the whole thing and she laughed and then squealed, "BUT IT'S MY SPECIAL DAAAAAAAAA-UUUUUUUHHHHH"
Back off Bridal Mafia. Well Bridal Mafia or searing pain from a large ovarian cyst. Intense pain can often take things out of perspective.
In other news Maddie is wondering why I have to ruin all her food with 'stuff' over at Ordering Disorder and we're getting ready to tackle the barrage of art coming into your homes with school starting at The Buzz Off.
The closing went reasonably smooth. Except for the part where I turned off their power accidentally. Our buyer is a very sweet woman and her husband.
She says she loves older homes. I hope she understands what that means.
We are currently driving down to visit my brother and sister in law in Indy to celebrate.
It is a long drive. A very long drive. But at the end we will be eating an assortment of meats on sticks at the state fair, we'll be swimming at Rivi and we will be attending the big Sausage Fest.
Yes a festival of sausage at a church. I assume the older members of the congregation don't get the joke. Thankfully we do and the kids do not.
image/jpeg Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
We've been frantically clearing out the last remnants of our life in the old house for the last couple of days. Things like the vodka in the freezer and, oh, half my clothes which were in the laundry room and I'd completely forgotten about. I only mildly registered my three pair of underwear and lone pair of shorts as 'a little peculiar'. This is what home loving mania does to you.
We also found another 40 outfits of Logan's. I know I've moaned before about Logan's extensive wardrobe. I am seriously tempted to take pictures of him every day for the next three months so I can prove to him that he wears the same 10 items over and over and over and so he doesn't need to take up three quarters of the closet, five drawers of an enourmous dresser to my one quarter of the closet and 4 tiny drawers assembled of particle board.
I'd take pictures of each of his outfits, except that he leaves the house at 6 or 7 in the morning and the only reason to be awake at 6 o'clock in the morning is the same sole reason there is for running 26.2 miles. You are being chased by a tiger. And not just a zoo tiger or anything, a very hungry, wild and possibly rabid tiger.
Yesterday I woke up early feeling a little stressed about deadlines and house closings at around 5 in the morning. As I laid there convincing myself to go back to sleep Logan's alarm went off. He got up right away and started getting dressed for a bike ride.
I said, "I can not believe you are waking up at 5 in the morning to go for a bike ride."
He replied, straight faced, "It's not 5.....it's 5:30."
Then I looked for the wild and hungry tiger which must be in hot pursuit. No tiger.
Our closing is tomorrow morning at 10am and then Saint Joseph can come to live with us in our new home.
We threw a wedding shower for my sister this weekend. That's right, seven days after moving in, we hosted a party. My sister's celiac's disease and the insanely busy nature of the last few weeks was a wonderful excuse to keep our celebration simple and involved about a billion dollars worth of sushi from our local Japanese market.
My sister lives in Detroit and so do most of her friends. Our new neighborhood is seriously lacking in any urban grit, in the old neighborhood we had no back yard only a side yard and we also had a few random homeless people or old school shirtless skateboarders with tube socks carrying home a case of light beer.
We're quite fond of the new neighborhood and the lack of grit of course but still when surrounded by urban hipsters I feel a little silly for all the times I've cuddled with the under mount sink in my kitchen.
Oh well, hanging out with the hipsters gave me my first real hangover in around 6 months. That's impressive.
Maddie and Max bought a little gift for Teri and Mike and gave them a very thoughtful card as well.
"You get to be together until you die! Hooray! Love Maddie and Max."
Hooray!
Today the kids and I created simple origami figures in an attempt to burn daylight. Super project! ++++++ Will do again! Also, remember when I told you about the new features at AlphaMom, the name database and the product review/rating features? You can enter to win $1000 just for contributing your hard earned opinion on various products. You should also check out LeahPeah's Keyboard Confidential series. Lots of great conversations from last year's Blogher.
Additionally I started documenting my kitchen organization progress at Ordering Disorder.
There are just over two weeks before schools starts. It's amazing what a shit ton of stress + trampolines + 4-6 kids on your block will do to make your summer fly by.
This also means there are less than two weeks until my sister's wedding. Eee! Her wedding is in the very northern Michigan city of Marquette, which means we'll be leaving in a day or two so we make it in time.
Be the WOW Tech Support Lady. Start out by calling the 'System Preferences' tab the "System Perfections", tell me, "Well you're connected to the internet, Macs are usually really good at this," go on to tell me there's nothing you can do saying, "You'll have to call Apple I guess."
Then, end the call with the canned speech including the words, ".....Is there anything else I can do for you today Mrs. Summers?"
Well, now that you mention it, can you tell me why my connection to the internet isn't working?
Many years ago when Logan and I were still dating he told me this story as we drove to dinner one night.
He was at a busy intersection and a teenager was trying to cross the street on his bike carrying a big load of sandwiches from the Subway on the corner.
As he crossed the road, all the sandwiches fell out of his grasp and into the road. Logan watched as he hopped off his bike and tried to pick up the sandwiches. Impatient drivers started blaring their horns when the light changed and the poor kid was still in the middle of the road trying to salvage the lunch he was sent to pick up.
He said, as he watched the poor kid trying to pick up his sandwiches he felt sick to his stomach and close to tears. How humiliated and frustrated the guy must have been and how he wanted to punch who ever was honking.
I don't remember if he actually put the car in park and went to help the kid or if he just sat in the driver's seat and felt like crap about the whole thing but either way he told me that story and it made me tear my panties off and throw them at his head.
Logan turned 39 today.
When he was born his parents had to bring $150 to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit to pay their bill and take their new baby home.
I'm so glad they did.
Yesterday we hosted Pizza Night here and in preparation I tore down the Box Village the kids created the other day. As I tore it all apart and picked up miles of tape off the walls and floors and pieces of furniture while sweating and getting increasingly annoyed as the process took over an hour, I thought to myself how one day my kids will be sitting around reminiscing.
"Remember that one day, back in '07, when mom let us do something fun? Man, that was a great day."
Because never ever again. The neighbor kids may be thinking I'm a fun mom! But the truth is I was just a desperate mom who needed to keep the kids busy while I unpacked boxes and noted the serious disparity between the number of articles of clothing I own and the number of articles of clothing my dapper spouse owns. (Did I mention he won a $200 gift card at The Big Prom last week?)
Today I'm browsing aprons at the Buzz Off because I'm fed up with stains on my clothes at the end of the day.
The cable guy came yesterday and hooked us all up. He said, "Would you like me to help you with your router?" I said, "No, it's a mac, how hard can it be?" I failed to mention how it was still in a box. Later in the day I hooked it up and though I'm getting a strong signal, I am still unable to use the signal to make the internet go.
Here's what did not work.
Unplugging both the cable modem and the Airport.
Turning off my computer four times.
Swearing under my breath.
Swearing loudly.
Clicking on links over and over hoping the connection would somehow turn on magically.
Using the Airport set up utility four times.
And with that I am totally out of ideas.
Any thoughts on why my Airport isn't picking up the internet? I am currently 'borrowing' the neighbor's network (with permission!) and it requires me to sit in my window strategically pointing the computer toward their house. Which is fun and everything but I miss browsing in a leisurely manner.
It seems I may have been a bit misunderstood on my last post. I'm happy. I've got those crazy unicorns and koala bears wearing 'I [heart] You' t shirts shooting out of my ass I'm so happy. Every time I walk into this house, angels sing and rainbows punch me in the face. This morning I served the kids breakfast at the bar in the kitchen and it was just about the best thing about my year so far.
Maybe I needed to spell it out more specifically.
Still there's a part of me who laid awake the first night we slept here and had an anxiety attack because this is far more space than we need. This is far more good than we needed. We pretty much just needed out of our old neighborhood and still we got all this space and all these neighbors and all these kids for our kids to play with and Color Me Communist but my God I feel mildly anxious about having all this. About half this much would be more than enough actually.
Don't worry though, it's nothing a little pizza night with friends won't cure.
I am in the throes of unpacking and trying to get some semblance of order in this house. So far the kids rooms are the best, which is typical. Everything else is a mess. We lost our built in bookshelves in the move and our other bookcase doesn't fit in the family room, so at The Buzz Off I'm looking at storage solutions for books.
At Ordering Disorder I'm switching gears from food and menu planning tips to organizing your kitchen cabinets because I need help and when you gaze upon the mess I've made of our cabinets in just 3 days you'll understand why and hopefully have some advice or resources or something.
No internet. I'm stealing a very weak signal from the neighbors.
There have been 2-7 kids here since we moved in and everyone keeps telling me how sorry they are but this is exactly how I pictured summers for my kids. Also it makes me feel less guilty for all this space when the house is full of people.
We worked hard to get out of the last house. But I'm not sure we worked this hard.
I hate that I still feel the need to begin a post about my daughter with this style of disclaimer. That people still need to be told that you can be frustrated and overwhelmed by your child and still love them with every speck of your being. I love that Madison is complex, I love that she knows how she feels about things and I love that she has an empathy for animals that highlights her sensitive spirit.
I prayed and I prayed for a daughter and I didn't realize it at the time but I prayed for a little girl who is so incredibly like me I am supposed to teach her how to be a more comfortable and secure person considering all her quirks and insecurities. When I was growing up, no one was able to teach me those things because there were several areas which were lacking as part of a 'secure childhood'.
So much of what I thought it took to raise happy, healthy and secure children is in place: a loving family, a wonderful father, a secure home free of chaos, no worries about money, a brother who worships the ground she walks on, a mother who is well....good enough.
It seems like I've given her all these things I did not have growing up and she is still exactly like I was and it brings out an unpleasant feeling in me. Like I was given this chance to raise a daughter the way I wish I was raised and I've failed to do it differently. And when I look at the list of things I thought it took, I am the only one failing on that list. I still dislike talking on the phone, I'm still shy around new people, I struggle to like myself, I still fall into depression even though I have everything I ever wanted. (And I'm not talking about the house.)
Yesterday after my post Nicer-Funnier-Sister-In-Law emailed me and said over the week Maddie spent there she said to my brother several times, "I don't think she's having any fun/ I think she hates me / I think she wants to go home / I don't think she's happy here / I think I would be a shitty parent. He too thought he would be a shitty parent, so if you feel like you're one (which you're not) we totally get it."
She also said, "...She doesn't seem to live in the moment like other kids....which makes me think that she's more mature than other kids her age....but then the poor little thing is so shy....that it makes me think she's mature in her thinking but maybe not so socially. Does that make sense?"
And it does, it really does. Maybe we should have given her that hormone free milk.
On Saturday we attended the neighborhood block party. She knew at least 3 of the girls at the event and this is an event which, thanks to mothers who are a lot more fun than I am, is geared toward fun for kids. There were silly string fights, scavenger hunts, a kids bake off, an egg toss, pinatas, jump rope contests and cherry pit spitting contests.
Every morning Maddie asks me what we're doing that's fun for kids today.
This is what she has in mind for a daily agenda.
But since there were girls she didn't know at this event Maddie spent almost 70% of the evening/afternoon crying that she wanted to go home. "I just don't want to be here." Alternately she shadowed Logan and I as we tried to have an adult conversation. I had to work very hard to push down the desire to say, "THIS IS THE FUN YOU DEMAND EVERY SINGLE DAY! THERE IS NO OTHER FUN! This is it."
A few weeks ago I took the kids to the pool. I got in and played with them for an hour and then said, I was going to sit and read a magazine and they could keep swimming if they wanted. Max toweled off and ran to the giant sandbox where he met 4 new buddies and they spent another hour building elaborate sand villages.
Madison sat next to me begging to go home. "THIS IS THE FUN!"
Two days ago my friend Andrea asked if she could take my two kids with her to the pool with her girls. I remembered the last visit where I gritted my teeth and wondered why my daughter can't just be a kid and enjoy things, but thought, "Andrea's girls will be there and she won't get bored."
An hour into the visit Andrea called telling me Maddie wanted to go home. Max was fine and had joined in a game with the other kids her daughter knows but Maddie just, "Wasn't having fun."
And it was sort of my breaking point for the summer. I have one every year but this year it is enormously frustrating because it's not just the endless stream of activities to fill the miles and miles of daylight. This year it's frustrating because it seems my son has caught on to the fact that it's possible to make your own fun and my daughter is a sullen 13 year old at 8 years old.
It feels like home now. image/jpeg Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
