A Star is Born....?

Took Julie for headshots last month and I think they came out great. We're getting composite cards printed now, which will be mailed to agencies. We're hoping someone out there might be interested in hiring her for "print work", which is not acting, but still ads (ie catalogues, magazines, etc).



Of course, I think ALL my girls are drop dead gorgeous. But I think there's something in her eyes, her mouth, that just scream model to me. But I'm biased.....



kazakhbeautysaywhat...?

Nesting

Is it b/c I'll be getting a "new" kid for a week next month?
Is it b/c one of my "old" kids will be returning home in a few days after an absence of a week and a half?
Or is it b/c deep down I'm a closet OCD maniac who never gets her fix?

Whatever the reason, yesterday was the first honest to goodness day I've had this summer that I didn't have to cart one of the kids off to a doctor/dentist/orthodontist or lesson. I had no groceries to shop, no dry cleaning to drop. I had no vet, no farrier, no wormings to tend to.

So what did I do? I revamped the girls' closets, handing down, throwing out, storing away for later. I overhauled Mission Control in my kitchen where I track appointments and activities, homework, due dates for books and DVDs, and the perpetually incoming permission slips. And I organized to within an inch of its life the arts and craft shelf in our so-called Dining Room (insert air quotes here).



I had all the earmarks of a mother-to-be in her nesting phase. But I know this organizational mania was induced, not by pregnancy hormones, but instead by a rainy summer day while I was one child down and had the soothing sounds of a Monopoly battle in the background as white noise.

Looking around at my house, I need a lot more of those days ......

He le-eft, on a jetplane.....

Yesterday, I watched James board the airplane to fly solo out to Boston to stay with his best friend for a week+. He was met at the airport by Madiyar and his Mom (my good friend Dee) and she whisked them home where the boys have been busy making runs to the dollar store, going for walks together, eating pizza and watching movies. Today they are loading up the van and driving out to their family vacation spot in New Hampshire, where they will fish, swim, explore and, you guessed it, eat pizza and watch movies (de rigueur stuff for teenaged boys).
When James flies home next Sat, he will do so in the company of Madiyar, and M will stay with us for about 10 days where they will...oh you know the drill.

Here's to James and Madiyar having a wonderful best friends reunited blast together over the next nearly three weeks.
Here's to Dee getting a small break when the boys are with me for a bit.
And here's to me getting a break while the boys are with her.
I miss him, but it is so nice to have, not one less mouth to feed, but one less mouth to argue. I feel more relaxed already, even after only one day, from not feeling quite so "on guard", ever on alert for the latest confrontation.

If it worked for him .....

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post, he {Warren Buffett} credited his father for teaching him how to live, and explained that all parents can make a "better human being" by offering their children unconditional love:


The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. And I think that if you offered that to your child, I mean you’re 90 percent of the way home. There may be days when you don’t feel like it, it’s not uncritical love, that’s a different animal, but to know you can always come back, that is huge in life. That takes you a long, long way. And I would say that every parent out there that can extend that to their child at an early age, it’s going to make for a better human being.

Dog Days of Summer

Coolin' off in the 100+ degree heat with a dip in the crick with the dawgs.

Tie-Dye 4th of July