summer hasn't been so bad.

not nearly as hard as i thought. kids have only been making me a tiny bit crazy. we've stayed busy with camps, elks, bbq's, friends, camping. you know the drill. your basic summatime.

since we were out of town last weekend and are leaving in a couple days for yosemite, i thought i'd grace y'all with the best part of my summer-- these faces.

holy crap, i'm cute y'all!

i finally got my blue eyed beauty

you didn't know i had 3 girls huh?

teaching tali to read. cuz we're genius's

fernwood camp trip May 2010

my house is a very, very, very fine house

when b and i heard the news from his ever so generous parents that owning a home could become a reality for us, we immediately began our search.

first, we found the best realtor in the county (we didn't have to look far!) and began pouring over the MLS. we knew immediately that slo wasn't gonna be an option. we tried to finagle a way to make it happen, but knew that if we did, we'd be at the high end of what we could afford and stuck in a tiny house. we decided on either arroyo grande or los osos. we had a lot of friends in AG and knew that the commute would be minor for b. in the back of our minds we also knew that AG would likely be a better investment in the long run, but in the end it came down to one thing.

surfing.

yep, that's right. we basically chose los osos cuz the waves are better here. now before all you south countiers get up in arms, just know we don't hate the wrongboarders out in shell, or all of bakersfield that invades pismo all summer long-- its just we really like the idea that we could be contaminating our groundwater with our own s%*t.

nah, the reality is neither of them are perfect, but at the time osos is where we thought we would call home.

for those of you who know me, you know i love los osos. i could dedicate entire blogs to this town. sure its kooky, sandy, full of hippies and lacking a sewer or basic city planning, but the reality is, its also full of a lot of really awesome people parked in one of the most foggiest beautiful areas on the central coast. we got mountain biking, boating, surfing, trail running, hiking, literally all minutes from our door. and one of the raddest parts about it, is we have wonderful neighbors and friends to share it with.

yet, i digress once again. so began our search in los osos. we looked at a lot of houses. i was convinced that we couldn't be on a numbered street because no one would come visit us (this was before i moved all of my best friends here). i thank the lord b didn't listen to that crazy talk and convinced me that i couldn't discriminate against numbered streets. we found our way to a little part of osos called cuesta by the sea. our good friends had nothing but rave reviews about this little nook. heck- it was close to MDO and the seconds from the bay... how could we go wrong? we settled on a charming little (emphasis on little) house just two blocks from the bay. after much brilliant negotiation (thanks to our realtor) we still couldn't agree on a price. so one evening when we were hashing out whether or not we should go for it, we stumbled upon this....

we'd seen it a few times, but it was just a hair out of our price range. not to mention, it was a bit funky. but hey, its osos right? anyhow, we decided to at least check it out. i wish i could tell you it was love at first sight, but the massive rock fireplace wall, and cottage cheese ceilings were distracting me. we wandered around, and though it wasn't exactly hoarders material, there really was a lot of crap loaded in it. but it wasn't annoying crap. it was a desk in the living room, cuz there was no room for it in the kids rooms. it was surfboards and skateboards and bmx bikes hanging from the rafters in their crammed to the gils garage, it was their hand prints in the cement near the front door, it was the dining room table jammed into the corner of the kitchen with the light off-center just to be able to maximize the space and be able to fit 4 teenage kids around the dinner table. and then it was the owner of the house telling us how her son rides his bike to baywood for pizza, and her daughter rides horses up the street. and lastly, it was her telling us they already bought another house with the assurance that this house would sell a lot faster than it was. as much as i'd like to say it was my stellar negotiation skills, it really was their 'tight' situation that enabled us to reach an agreement. 30 days later we moved in two truckloads our stuff from our 750 sq ft studio on garden st. that first night we sat on the floor and ate pizza with some friends and marveled that we were now homeowners. when we went to bed that night, i laid there thinking about the baby in my tummy kicking and thought 'the house seems different than i remembered.'

sometimes i'll find myself coveting clean, new, big, shiny houses, or beautiful, old restored homes and think, 'why i am stuck in this semi-remodeled 1970's architectural experiment on a tiny lot on a street with no sidewalks?' and then i look around and can't find a matching pillowcase to save my life, or notice that our crown molding project is on two of three walls, or i see cobwebs under the eaves of our roof, or i drive up and just pray someone would please dump buckets of paint on it. but then when i walk inside and see this

and this

and this,

and of course, this

and i know.

i know that even though my house is definitely lacking refinement, and its scattered with kids artwork and hot wheels and polly pockets shoes, and no matter how much i clean it it never will smell like the new homes i used to sell, i know in my heart that this is my home, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

so with that said, i'd love to hear...

'what makes a house a home?'

mo money, mo problems.

i grew up in the other side of the tracks.

that is, if slo had tracks.

i would have been on the other side. you know the ones... most of my friends were on the right side. i've written before about coveting white carpets and new appliances and a mom and dad under the same roof, and the smell of freshly baked cookies. and though i spent a significant part of my weekends at such houses, i always came home to one amazing mom and thursday nights at my dads. we never had a lot of money. we had just enough.

don't get me wrong, i can't tell you how thankful i was for those deep country club pockets that provided me experiences my parents never could have- third row seats to warrior games, trips to hawaii, and magic mountain. fun stuff for sure, all with someone else's family. i loved and treasured those trips cuz they were definitely not the norm for me. though they weren't something my parents could afford, i remember feeling satisfied, i was never scared, and never hungry. sure, i longed for presents and gifts and the immediate gratification i saw my friends provided, but it wasn't something that consumed me.

now that i'm all growed up with a family of my own, it got me thinking i could really be a consumer if i had the resources. to be honest, having *a lot* of money scares me. could i really be trusted? mo money, mo problems yo. i gotta admit there's a bit of romance in just squeaking by-- like well, if i want to get that, i got to sell this... there is a satisfaction that comes from actually wanting-- not just always getting. sounds crazy i know and b thinks i'm coo-coo, but honestly i guess i just know my carnal nature.

yet just when we began heading towards affluenza, something changed. that little bitch called the economy. everyone loves to blame everything on the economy. and really, rightly so. crappy economy=crappy jobs=zero dollars. for a lot of people our age-ish, this whole economy tanking has been a bit of a rude awakening. maybe some of us felt the effect of a similar time in the early 90's when the market crashed... but we were teenagers and so the stress of money was distant. for most of us, the hardest part meant we wouldn't be getting our subscription to seventeen renewed. we didn't have to worry so much about food and shelter, our parents shouldered that. and then we went to college and things were kinda crappy when we graduated, but then it quickly turned around. jobs! jobs! jobs! then a lot of us got married and guess what, it didn't matter how much money you made- 'no income, no assets' became our best friend. a lot of us got into houses we couldn't afford and popped out a few kids and then we woke up and were like, 'oh crap, we can't make our mortgage!' and suddenly the stakes were so much higher, cuz we had people we were responsible for. very little people.

i feel super fortunate to have escaped most of this. i mean really fortunate. b has had some pay cuts and my real estate career - wait what? your a realtor? like a broker? like you would love to help us find our dream home? or list our house for a 1% listing? yes, as a matter of fact i would. and the good news is, i will work my mother of 3 booty off for you, cuz you are probably my only client i care that much. ahem, as i was saying, my real estate career has tanked slowed downed considerably. however, we are fortunate to have that little bit of savings (from the good ol days) that continues to waste away as we nibble away at it each month to make up for the pay-cuts. with that said, i have so many friends that this has affected in a really, really real way. its so difficult to watch your friends gasping to stay afloat, and feeling too strapped yourself to help in a substantial way. i want to blame someone, like bush, or fox news, or hurricane katrina, or the j-holes on wall street, but nothing really helps. the fact of the matter is, whether you are loosing your home to foreclosure, or just barely squeaking by each month, times are tight.

so when b and i got to talking the other day about how few dollars we actually have, i told him if we just (just always being the operative word) had like $300 more a month, we could make it. and he said, 'with that extra money, would we be putting any into savings?'

yeah right.

it was then and there we decided that you were officially doing okay if you were able to save each month. the reality is, we live paycheck to paycheck, and so do almost all of our friends.

so with that said, i'd love to know...

'how much money do you need to make before it's enough?'

leave it to the wise woman...

comment of the day: I once heard "enough is a little bit more than you already have." so we never have enough. it's good that we are all in the boat together. the most generous people i know have next to nothing. just a reminder that this is not our home.

-Roxanne Foote

bed bugs

do yourself a favor and do NOT google image search bedbugs. i'm pretty sure i just threw up in my mouth.

bed bugs are hot right now. oprah got them on her show, and now no one is safe anymore. i'm not so concerned about bed bugs because i'm to busy being stressed out about black mold and flesh eating maggots dropping slowly into your bed over the course of two days before realizing it. but that's another TRUE story for another time. in any event i got to thinking about beds in general the other day when we decided to take down the co-sleeper. with tali being almost 8 months old, we are dangerously close to getting our ferber on and letting her cry it out. its never easy, but we have to before we decide to start continuum parenting which is always creepy.

so anyway, as b wrestled the co-sleeper out of our room i took a wee peek under it and then further under our bed. it was the usual suspects, long lost pacifiers, used and un-used nursing pads, a liberator love pad, stray infant socks, all nestled in copious amounts of hair and dust. pretty awesome, and very stressful for my inner non-existent neat freak. in any event it got me thinking- i've come a long way from the drug paraphernalia and too short cd's hiding under my bed from my youth. cuz really, nothing says mom like lost breast pump parts being found under your bed when you do finally do get the hose attachment on your vacuum and bend over to clean. don't be jealous.

i know its not the most exciting question-- or maybe it is... in any event, please do tell,

'what's under your bed?'

i knew he'd claim it as soon as he came around... he's kind of a genius and if you haven't already, you should really check out his blog- just don't start reading his instead of mine.

comment of the day: a secret hatch that when opened, reveals a ladder that takes you down to an underground bunker with a single desk, on which sits a computer that I make Jenn enter the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 and 42 into, lest the world come to an end.

-Travis Avila

safety first

i love running in san luis.

i can't tell you how many times i've been so ready to dedicate an entire blog to all the sights and scents that spell home to me. from the smell of wet asphalt at my old elementary, to the myriads of all those flowers i don't know the names of (yes i still pay $100 a month for the B.S in horticulture i received at cal poly).

SLO has it all, and then some.

today that 'some' came in the form of my personal safety. for those of you that are female, who run or hike, personal safety is never far from your mind. i have lots of friends who only run/hike with someone else, or carry pepper spray, or some other form of defense-- but then there are those of us, myself included, who are naive enough to think that they are immune to any sort of calamity. its SLO after all right?!

i live in osos. i do most of my running in osos. MDO is my backyard and it doesn't get much better trail running than out here. of course there have been a few isolated cases of attack in the park, but for the most part it feels pretty darn safe- our biggest threat being ticks, snakes and oak. i've had my run in with all three, including the time a baby rattlesnake blocked my path and i had to be rescued by st. francis of montana de oro, or as i later found out the checker on aisle 4 at trader's. but that's another story for another time. i'm used to the park, and when i get my music goin' and my stride dialed, i rarely feel frightened, or consumed by the idea that mariska hargitay will have to discover my body later.

so the other day when my mom offered to watch the kids so i could go on a run, i agreed immediately. after dropping the kids off, i got my shoes on, turned up the gaga and hit the pavement. one of my old running routes from my days in SLO involves meadow park. growing up, meadow was my old stomping grounds. i had a bunch of friends in elementary school who lived there and i spent countless hours in that neighborhood doing paper routes, playing softball, and hiding in the bushes to spray innocent bystanders with a water main. there were some good times for sure. so when i passed the obligatory homeless man i didn't think much of it, till a few hundred meters up i thought, that guy wasn't just collecting cans in his shopping cart- there was more- he had that look that crazy couldn't contain. it gave me a little shiver as i made my way onto the path in meadow park. of course just as i turn the corner i almost hit another (male) runner, and then we do that super awkward like who's gonna take the lead bit- there are only two of us on this single track path, and i'm having thoughts like 'if i'm in front he'll probably attack me from behind, if only my hand could automatically turn into a switchblade when i'm provoked...' you know all the normal stuff. once i safely get away from him, i notice a 'work crew'- you know the kind. yeah, the CMC kind. of course they are hardly working and seemingly very loosely supervised. i keep going, and just as i'm getting ready to exit the park altogether and get back on the road, i see a creepy white van that unfortunately i've seen at other parks one to many times. next time i see it, i'm totally calling the cops. i'm not one to judge *ahem* but that thing has got amber alert written all over it. i tell you what, i'll take the cat ladies any day in their ratty ol station wagon parked in front of meadow park. at least they loved animals, even if they were the reason the show 'hoarders' came to be. so i make it out of the park, back on the roads, and have a pretty uneventful rest of the run beside some questionable rabid dog that i was convinced would attack if i ran by to fast. but then i remembered i have that fear every time i run by a dog after being 'for real' attacked while running when i lived in ediburgh.

so the rest of the way to my mom's house i thought about how i could prepare myself next time for all of these 'situations.' and then it came to me... a flash of pure genius. picture it, me 12 years old, in a hot sweaty building near franks famous hot dogs. the room was packed to the gills of women of all ages from 15-75 all awaiting their chance. 'next up, we have connie mcnoble...' i hear someone shout. everyone starts cheering. i wait anxiously as my mom comes out with her war cry. next thing i know a huge thing comes chasing after her- likely a man dressed in a hockey/football combo uniform with what looks like an nasa astronaut mask on his face. next thing i know my mom is hi-ya-ing and ka-booming this fool. the crowd goes wild. my mom has him pinned... all 110 lbs of her. handled. i'm confused, but incredibly proud. who can forget... model mugging.

no, that's not dark vador, just your local model mugger.

so the real question i know you are dying to ask... am i going to re-start a chapter locally? i know, so very tempting, but even with all my free time, i think i'm gonna pass. in the meantime we gotta figure out a way to stay safe in this urban jungle called SLO. so here's where you come in...

'how do you best protect yourself when you go running or hiking by yourself?'

i copied this idea from my favorite blogger of all time cuz she's kind of a genius and i want to be just like her when i grow up and or be her comment of the day... wink wink.

comment of the day: i read a kids book in middle school where the heroine used ground mustard; she tossed it into the attackers' eyes. i'm carrying a li'l bag until i can get a dog. or a tazer.

-esther jane

mustard in the eye. genius. thanks esther.

i'm not always a coward. well, come to think of it, i am.

this is basically what i looked like everyday, but if the car was blue...

every year for my birthday and christmas my grandma jeanie gave me $100. that's a lot of money when you're six years old- heck its a lot of money today! so much so, that i didn't totally grasp how much money i was really raking in twice a year.

however it wasn't a couple years later, when i was eight years old, and my brother was 15 that i realized i had a plan for this money. while he was busy trying to find a way to convince my parents to buy him a car, i watched and listened carefully. i can remember several long arguments as he pleaded his case. i vowed then and there i would not have to go through that. i decided to open a bank account and save all the money grandma jeanie gave me, so that on june 20, 1995 i could not only get my license, but also have my own car.

so for the next eight years, i dutifully took that check from grandma and walked over to the ol' sesloc and deposited that 100 bucks (except one christmas when i was ten years old, the weberstown mall beckoned me to buy my first leather jacket- a must when you are ten years old, but also a bit sketchy cuz afterall you are in stockton). since the math might be too difficult, i'll spare you- by the time i was 16 years old, i had close to $2000 bucks.

lucky for me, my mom's friend was selling an old volvo. not just any old volvo, but a 1982 sparkly blue turbo. this thing was bad A-S-S. not like the range rovers and beamers you see crowding the parking lots of SLOHS, this thing was growly, chunky and pure awesomeness. clearly the hottest thing to grace that parking lot in a long time. i can't tell you how cool it was to have my OWN car. FREEDOM!

after acing (that's right i got 100) on my driving test, i hit the open road. i immediately paid to get a cd player installed so i didn't have to do the ol discman with tape adapter biz my friends were wrestling with. i blasted indigo and sarah, smoked newports and just drove.

life was good.

but of course, like all new drivers i found myself in a new world. from learning to pull over for ambulances, to letting the car to your right go first at a stop sign, there was lots to learn. there was also lots to get pissed off about. like most teenage drivers i rolled through stop signs, sped, cut people off, and even flipped the bird more than i should have. this sort of behavior not only landed me some tickets and accidents, but also a few other incidents.

it was a tuesday afternoon and i had just pulled out onto johnson near SLOHS. as i pulled into the left lane i saw a car come speeding up super fast behind me. i pulled in front of it and accelerated as not to piss them off. however, she had other ideas. i should have clued into the 80's red camero and realized that this was not gonna end well. she came up super fast on my tail and started honking and waving, like i'd run over her cat or something. i was looking at her in my rear view mirror as she ranted and raved. i didn't feel like i had really done anything so wrong, so i decided to piss her off by going super slow. this really made her angry, so she decided to pass me. as she was passing me, i sped up and she got caught between me and two cars. by now she's super pissed, so much so, that she slows down and rolls down her window yelling at me to pull over. at this point i started to get a bit nervous, cuz my last altercation didn't exactly prove me a winner. so i tried to ignore her and just speed up. but instead, she got behind me and just kept yelling and motioning for me to pull over. this went on for what seemed like forever. i kept trying to loose her, but she was committed to settling this.

finally i realized that she was not gonna let this go. so i signaled to the right and pulled over on pismo st. i'd just calmly explain to her that i was sorry and we could just forget about the whole thing. she quickly signaled and pulled up right behind me as i came to a stop. i waited in my car as she opened her door. as soon as her door had closed and she began to walk my way, i saw that she was still clearly very pissed-- no raiders bomber jacket, but she was easily in her early 30's and quite possibly high on angel dust (or so i thought). just as she was about 5 feet from my window, i sped away. i watched in my mirror as she ran back to her car, but there was no way. she was safely behind me. another disaster averted, this one without tears, but a pounding heart nonetheless.

so with that said, please, do tell.

'have you ever road raged someone?'

meat might still be murder

why yes, i did just throw up in my mouth

when i was 12 years old i went to my aunt's house for the week to visit my cousins. my aunt was fresh out of a divorce and exploring some alternative ways of living. after the typical greetings and chitchat with the family, my usual june cleaver sort of aunt led me into their tv room to watch a little video.

this little video single handedly changed my life. ol johnny boy had his share of all that casein with baskin robins and was ready to blow our minds. he was kind of like the original micheal moore-- exposing the underbelly of what makes america taste so good...

anyway, the next 45 minutes my little sixth grade mind began to burst at the seams. seeing chickens and cows slaughtered in such a carnal and gruesome manner seriously traumatized me. i vowed then and there to never eat meat again. EVER.

and i didn't. for a good 10 years i stayed away from all forms of meat. i wore my vag badge proud much to the demise of many around me. it wasn't until i met b that i started to slip. he lured me into the meat trap once again (that's what she said) with whispers of bacon.... as he always says, 'pork is the gateway meat-- it will bring you back to red meat in the blink of an eye.' it wasn't long till i was slammin down sliders at applebee's with the best of 'em. no amount of threats from my brother about trichinosis could touch me now, i was makin up for lost time. supersize me seemed like a great idea, not to show how nasty mc'd's was but just cuz you got to eat that much mcdonald's... that was how far i had fallen.

with my mouth dripping with the sweet, salty gristle of bacon, i turned my eyes, ears and heart from the continued warnings... every once in awhile i'd catch glimpses of that sunny afternoon in my aunt's house, or flash back to uptain sinclair's the jungle, but for the most part the vag in me had died- just like the chickens getting electrocuted in those big drums of water. i would never be a vegetarian again.

but before i knew it suddenly it seemed ol mr. robbins was on to something. movies like food, inc came out pleading with us to stop poisoning ourselves and watch what we eat. yet i had turned, and i just wasn't sure i could come back. i started to rebel. not just in my actions, but in my heart. i wasn't gonna fall for this hoopla, these people were annoying. i had to shut them out... meat can't be murder! i love it too much!

maybe its the semi annual mr. micheals fur haters, or the fine folks over at fox news, or maybe even all those tree huggin liberals in berkely. whatever the case, i want to know...

'which activists are the most annoying?'