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tent bedz

when i was a little girl i had a tent bed. a nice pink one that attached to my bed and made it look like a house. i felt so important when i could zip up the door myself. practically speaking, it also kept me from falling out in the middle of the night. i thought, for a while, about hunting down that tent bed for darla but then started dreaming up a simpler way that we could do the tent bed on our own.

here’s what we came up with:

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we found some decorative ceiling hooks that were guaranteed to hold up to 90 lbs, – you know, for when child decides to try and zip line her tent bed – affixed them to the wall, tied some clothesline between the two, and threw some blankets over it…

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Voila! Tent Beeeeeeeeddddd!!! and this way i can change up the sheets that are used and even take it down when need be – you know, as a time out measure when the child tries to zip line her tent bed.

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some extra book reading has been the result. mostly because i don’t want to get out of it either.

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suffice to say, the girl enjoys her tent bed.

samesies

some more pics from that one weekend i keep sharing. i would like to state that these moments were a lot less awkward than they came across on film. darla was happy that she and fruncle james were dressed as “samesies” for our holiday photo shoot:

she’s a very lucky girl to have so many great fraunties and fruncles who will pose for awkward family photos with her. what more could a girl ask?

hiatus

hi friends,

how was your christmas? merry? jolly? bright? white?

i hope any combination of all of the above.

all was well here. busy busy hectic and busy. but ohhhh so much fun. christmas continues for the tucker half of my family. we’re currently “christmasing” at the abe martin lodge in brown county indiana. the setting is pretty ideal at the moment.

i’m typing next to a crackling fire. the view outside the windows is of snow covered trees and cabins. the lodge is decked out in holiday decor and rustic, natural adornments. kids are running around, families are playing board games in the game lobby. the kitchen is churning out wonderful homestyle food. my child is asleep and i’m enjoying some peace on the internet with my father here by the fire.

maybe that last sentence didn’t fit in with the rest of the painted picture but did you hear me? MY CHILD IS ASLEEP. she’s been very rambunctious due to the lax environment the holidays have created and she’s taking her first nap in what seems like weeks. so i’m catching up on some things on the interwebs by this here fire while i shove my face full of stocking stuffed jelly beans.

semi-quiet solitude: it’s the best christmas gift yet…

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ps. i have lots of pics and memories to share from our holiday celebrations but i’ll update on those soon. i’m trying my best to stay present with family time and disengaged from technology. present moments excluded.

 

the program

i am about out of deodorant and so it occurred to me that it’s time to share with you all what cousin and i call “the program.”

so arm and hammer make two different kinds of deos. one is Ultra Maxx and one is Essentials. ultra maxx is the anti-perspirant aka contains aluminum and essentials is natural deodorant.

your momness, why are you sharing this information?

be patient, my pet, time for getting personal.

so i’ve tried and tried to go all natural with deodorants and even au natural without but let’s face it, sometimes life calls for a deodorant with anti-perspirant. once darla was born i had to suck it up for the 13 months that i was breastfeeding and ban the aluminum from my body but oh my lawd….my body did this weird thing where my left underarm was on overload and it just reeked. sometimes it would rub off on darla’s head while i was nursing and i’d pick her up afterwards and get a whiff and i’d know that i wasn’t a pleasant lady to be around on hot summer days.

but, something else happened while i was going non-aluminum. i stopped caring. as much. not completely because i’m not that bad ass but i decided that if i smelled like A NORMAL HUMAN BEING with NATURAL BODY ODOR it doesn’t really matter. i mean, i shower frequently enough that i’m not going to clear out a restaurant or anything so why did i need to subject my body to the harmful effects when the truth is it isn’t so bad. and no one else seemed to notice it as much as i did.

since then i’ve experimented with different natural deodorants and arm and hammer is by far the best i’ve come across. plus, they are one of the cheaper choices in the deodorant aisle. BONUS!! (btw, isn’t it ridiculous our country has a whole aisle just for deodorant???) most of their scents seem to be a little less offensive. i’d rather just smell like baby powder mixed with b.o. not some synthetic freesia masking the b.o. that still permeates through anyway…so i pick up the natural kind and the maxx and use the maxx on the days that i know i need to be more ummm presentable but mostly just stick to using the naturals.

smelling just a little is definitely better than breast cancer.

and if you’re a nursing mother, please! don’t use deodorant containing aluminum while you’re nursing your little one. you just can’t do it. don’t even get me started on the clinical strength stuff that deters your body from sweating at all…

cousin and i discovered that we had come to use the exact same deodorant schedule without communicating with each other. henceforth we called it “the program.” ok, well, we called it the program once and then i just kept calling it that in my head and she’s just now finding out about that, if she’s reading and SHE BETTER BE!!!, but that is all irrelevant.

hopefully you and your cousins will find this deodorant system to be a compromise that works, too.

dear salty internet friends,

oh yeah. i know you’re salty, too. mike’s back but the weekly updates won’t stop. smiles!

somethings that need to be said about life now that mike is back:

i spend my more self righteous moments making claims that i hold my family together by taking darla on single-handedly while mike is away. the reality that i love and abhor to admit is that i’m barely half the equation. the things mike does for this family are amazing. AND he does it without a thought of recognition. i, on the other hand, always want to hear my praises sung from the castle tops. reminder: i’m self centered. he’s gone for 3 months, works 12+ hour days when he is on tour and then comes back home to us and ALWAYS jumps back in without missing a step, like he’s never been gone.

if we switched places i would probably get a divan from rent-a-center for my first week home and place it right in the center of our most used room. i’d then commence with a big theatrical performance of how hard a transition it is. i’d repose on that divan all week sighing and squinting a lot. and my hand would probably be draped across my forehead 93% of the time. i’d also be wearing a hoop skirt just because… anyways, that’s the difference between us and that’s why we’re best suited for our current roles.

with that being said, i have to do the public acknowledgement thing again and say thank you to my husband for his help around the house. you have no idea how much it means to me to have a partner running this house.

i recently used the analogy of the wizard of oz to describe how mike being home revolutionizes my world. it can not even be described as a 180. he picks me up and sets me down in a completely different land when he returns. his twister blows in and stirs things up, carries us away, and then we eventually settle into a life routine that is really beautiful, vivid and full of adventures. yes, he is a storm. i mean, having a third body and mind in the house is a lot to recalibrate. more ideas and thoughts to be listened to. another body to be danced around. and oh the syncopation of the bathroom schedules. ladies, you understand? sharing a bathroom with a boy….ewwwww! but i’ll take it!!!!!

i’ll leave you with a few pics and then one last thought. more pics from our week will be added later. running a busy life means less time to blog about busy life.

some of my favorite pics of the week

i feel like sharing this thought:

there’s a big focus and push to continuously make life easier in our culture. i’ve learned that it’s the times when life is hard, so difficult that you don’t know if you can go on any longer, when your life has spun so far out of control that all you can do is dance in the eye of the storm – those times are the most important. those are the times you can’t afford to miss. those times are the living, breathing, oozing, pulsating elements. because even if you fuck it all up today the sun will still rise tomorrow. live for the hard times.

lookey lookey

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look at what happens when i have some time alone. see the decadence i provide for myself when my lovely husband takes the child out for some daddy + daughter time? peanut butter and nutella toast! and yes, i did make a heart out of the nutella on my own toast b/c…

women, they get weary. young girls, they get weary toooooooo…..

and then i listened to all five versions of “try a little tenderness” that hubster has on his itunes while i danced and folded kitchen towels which somehow turned into ribbon-twirling-like props. then i got sad thinking about all the hundreds of thousands of amazing vocalists that have passed on throughout time that i’ll never get to witness live. i miss you, otis! BUT THEN a more upbeat version of “tenderness” came on and i just twirled and sang again.

see what happens when i’m left alone with my thoughts????

black angels descend blanketing columbus in flannel

this won’t be a real concert review b/c i can’t tell you the names of the songs they sang or the intricacies of the music they played. i can only tell you there was flannel. seas of flannel.

i really only dig music for one reason alone: to shake my hair and my booty. sometimes in the same direction. sometimes in opposing directions. ahhhhwwww shake it momma.

ok, there is another reason. i like to sing along but that applies to only a certain subset of bands. i sing along in the crowd very loudly and tell myself that i’m actually better than the artist on stage. the black angels does not, however, fall into that category. neither does the dead meadow – the opening band wednesday night. both bands relied heavily on reverb and vocal echoes so i can’t even pretend that i understood any of their songs. very little of the words penetrated the aforementioned shaking of the hair. the black angels did play a song with the words “surf city” in the chorus though. i dug it. really, i enjoyed both bands quite immensely. i’ve seen the black angels at least twice before and had forgotten how good they are. i left feeling like i should follow them and every other band in the world more closely. i need to get back into my music lovership.

for the lack of detail and any actual structure, i can’t really say that i’m writing this for any real music journalist street cred. what i’m really accomplishing is publishing that “HEY, I’M A MOM AND I STILL DO COOL THINGS. I’M A PERSON TOO!” i’m sure some might be out there saying “but, Your Momness, (in my brain you all refer to me as this combination of mom and highness) you just took a 5 day jaunt to california why would you need another reprieve so soon?” well, it’s not my fault that they scheduled this tubular $5 show mere days after my return. sometimes you have to just jump at the opportunities and the offers for babysitting from friends unversed in your child’s demonic behavior. i’ve found that, at least for moi, i really need to keep up with some of my own hobbies and loves and have time out for myself to be a good mom. i’m inferior in the fact that i’m still really selfish with my time and i can’t give it all up to be devoted solely to darla. sometimes i wish i could but truthfully i think it will be in her favor in the end. I want darla to know that she can be a mom and not lose her whole, entire identity. i want her to grow up and say “my mom was an art lover, an avid reader, a music enthusiast and one hell of a booty shaker.”

so i just want to put it out there that if you are a new mom or a seasoned mom, you should know that you can still shake it if you wanna.

this segues into another recent story from my world. on our one night out in california, i was approached by a tall, handsome* **, englishman at a famous dischotheque. he offered to buy me a drink to which i immediately declined politely and told him i am married. his official response was (cue hugh grant accent) “why are you shaking your hair, then.” my response, “i’m married not dead” and excused myself from his presence. soooo, i’m also in favor of the ladies who are nuptually bound to continue shaking it.

i’m just a fan of shaking it! woooo hoooo! yeah! pretty much always have been and always will be. seriously, i was semi-famous for hair shaking in high school. this is my official disclaimer – no matter what other parameters involved in my life i will always and forever be shaking something.

what was this supposed to be about? how did i get onto this soapbox? i need to go focus on a dot on the wall and recenter. thanks for reading.

bye!

*dearest michael, he wasn’t really that handsome and the discotheque wasn’t famous. it wasn’t even a discotheque. i have my doubts as to whether he was actually english. maybe welsh. anyways, i was just trying to make you jealous so you’d remember how much you love me all the way over there. awwwwwwww. so sweet.

** he was tall.