Rachel Callahan

A Couple of VIAs (Very Important Announcements)

February 3, 2009 Rachel Callahan Newsflash, Shamelessly Plugging Away

Tonight will be the night. I hope. I will be attempting to move my blog to my new domain, www.graspingforobjectivity.com.

After I get this blog posted and published, I am going to make the move. Ooh I’m nervous!!

I will readily admit that I have NO IDEA how this is going to go. I THINK I’ve worked out all of the bugs this time, but that remains to be seen.

Everything that I have read says it will be seamless and that you can still get to my blog via my old URL as well.

My main concern is subscribers. I am pretty sure that you will need to resubscribe to www.graspingforobjectivity.com in whatever sort of blog reader you use. So if you don’t get a post from me tomorrow, that would be why – resubscribe!!!

Okay?

Now let’s all keep our fingers crossed!!!!

And if you have any problems whatsoever with the swapover, please let me know so that I can address them.

Thanks!!!!

And one not-so-important announcement: I think that I am finally going to start having some discrete ads on the side of my blog. HOWEVER, I mainly want to do this to fund my blog expenses. . . like giveaways.

So ultimately, you will benefit.

So don’t hate me for being ad-iful.

So, in review, change your links! I am going to now be at www.graspingforobjectivity.com.

Top Ten Rejected Mommy Blog Names

February 2, 2009 Rachel Callahan Uncategorized

Chris can come up with the best ideas for my blog. Both Baby Tips and The Moment of Truth: Special Edition were his ideas, and I adored them from the moment he told me about them. It doesn’t happen often, but when he says “I might have a good idea for a blog post”, I know it’s going to be good.

So this was his latest idea – Top Ten Rejected Mommy Blog Names, along with their subtitles.

I loved it!

He didn’t, however, help me out with any of the actual names. And after spending a week mulling it in the back of my mind, I realized that this writing assignment was harder than I expected.

And I don’t feel like I completely did the idea justice, so I’m going to ask for your help.

I just KNOW that there are some awesome jokes out there still to be made.

So, if you can think of a good “rejected Mommy Blog name”, please put it in your comments on this post. And you just might be entered into a contest a little later in the week. AND you just might have your idea published at 5 Minutes for Parenting. If between us we can come up with at least ten really great ones, I will post it on April 4th for “A Dose of Humor“.

Oh – and be sure to let me know which ones are your favorites – of both mine and ones that people comment in, so I know which ones to go with.

So, without further ado, here are my. . .

Top 10 Rejected Mommy Blog Names

Mommy’s Book of Blame
. . .and other fun moments in the life of a family.

Parenting according to Britney
. . .includes tips on toddler driving lessons and more!

I LOVE Stephanie’s Adventures in Babywearing blog, so how about. . .

Adventures in Babysharing
. . .Please! Can you keep my baby?? Just for a couple of days??

We all appreciate Bloggy Giveaways, but how about. . .

Bloggy Takeaways
. . .everything you ever needed to know about how to carry out identity theft.

There’s Swanky Moms, and then there’s. . .

Skanky Moms
. . .Where the how-is-she-allowed-to-be-a-Mom’s hang out.

So we’ve all seen stuff titled about the Proverbs 31 Woman, but what about. . .

The Proverbs 7 Woman
. . .With open arms to the world.

Popping Pampers and Prozac
. . .because one always seems to precede the other.

Pole Dancing and Potty Training
. . . how one working mother handles both.

One Mom Among Many
. . . musings of a Polygamist housewife.

And the number one rejected Mommy Blog name, instead of 5 Minutes for Mom. . .

5 Years for Mom
. . .Bringing Incarcerated Moms Together.

The Adventures of Just Us Girls

February 1, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Utter Silliness

Last night was Girl’s Night Out!! Pre-Blog Rachel would be saying about now, “I don’t know HOW LONG it’s been since I went on girl’s night out!”.

But, since I am a true blue blogger now, I have the easy reference of looking back and finding out that the last time I went on a girl’s night out, as a matter of fact, was May 6, 2008. And, when I look back to read about it, I see that I that exact sentence at the beginning of the post. Am I predictable or what.

So the plan was to go bowling. We thought that was a pretty “out of touch” thing to do these days (but still super fun for us), so we didn’t make reservations. We just showed up on a Saturday night at 6:30. We quickly learned, however, that we weren’t “un-hip” at all to go bowling on a Saturday night. In fact, there were so many hip people bowling that it was going to be over an hour before we got a lane.

Who knew we were so cool?

So we decided to go to the Starbucks in the Target next door and sit and chat while we waited for a lane.

Two of our party of six had a Little Debbie craving. So the rest of us went ahead and ordered our coffee and settled in.

However, when they came back from buying these,They were greeted by the rest of us with a huge tray of these:
Yes, that’s right. Good things come to those who wait.

You see, the wonderful Starbucks girl (or would she rather be called a barista?) told us that it was time for her to throw out all of her pastries, and although she wasn’t supposed to, would we like anything before she threw it out?

Lydia, thinking ahead, asked for it all.

However, some other patrons came up before she loaded it ALL up for us, but we still managed to score more overpriced-yet-delicious pastries than we ever needed.

So, which would you have chosen?
Believe it or not, one of the original Little Debbie cravers (who will go unnamed) still chose Little Debbie. Some people I will never understand..

(By the way, we had a long discussion about why in the world they were throwing out their pastries instead of donating them, but we all remembered this post by Rachel G. which sadly explained why.)

So after we drank coffee and ate many pastries and packed up the rest for our families at home, we headed back to the bowling alley.

Our number was 74, and when we left, the “now serving” sign was on 60. When we arrived back after over an hour had passed, they were now serving 62. One hour, two numbers.

A quick calculation by the accountant of the group (yours truly) gave us a more realistic wait time of six hours, so we could count on getting a lane at 1:50AM.

So obviously, we started discussing plan C. But, as we were deciding on where to go from there, they called 63,64,65, and 66, all of whom had apparently already bailed for their plan C.

So we decided to wait a few more minutes to see if all numbers lower than 74 had moved on.

So we headed to the game room.

Lydia and I decided that we needed to get out some competitive aggression, so we challenged each other to a game of Dance Dance Revolution (affectionately called “DDR” by those of the appropriate age to be playing that game, which would NOT include us).

So here we are, beating every high score that was ever on that machine (you know it):
The best part of all of the pictures that were taken is that in not one of them were we doing the same thing at the same time, which was actually supposed to be the case.

At any rate, I won the first and third round, and Lydia won the second and fourth, but beat me in the overall scores…

And you better believe that I got trash talked by her husband at Church this morning.

Yeah. What happens at girls night does not, apparently, stay at girls night.

I’m pretty sure that my reason for losing wasn’t actually my fault at all, but was due to the fact that my character (whom I had no choice in, may I say) had a very, um, uncomfortable looking wardrobe malfunction going on:
I remember when we were teenagers that our Parents thought it was gross when boys wore their boxers showing. Oh, had they only known how good they had it. . .

So after we played, and while Julie and April played a nice, calm game of Air Hockey,
Lydia and I peer pressured the two preggos, Lindsay and Ashley, to get up there and give their babies some dance lessons:
Yes, those babies are going to come out jumping up and down out of sync with each other.

So after having straining all of our aged muscles and working up a sweat, and the number 66 still “being served”, we decided to give up on bowling all together.

But not until I got a picture to share with you of our favorite people-watching sight of the night.

Lydia volunteered to “pose” for a picture near her so that I could do it without being noticed, but then my target politely moved so as not to be in my picture.

So, I decided to pretend to be a total and complete dork and take pictures of the bowling alley as we were leaving, being sure to get her in the very far corner of my pictures.

Because that’s how much I love you.

She had the best teased-hair-sprayed-helmet-hair ever:
I’m pretty sure that she starred in about 46 mid-80’s movies.

And when I was cropping my pictures and came to this second one, I realized that she just might have been on to me:
I was lucky to make it out of there without her pulling out Aquanet from her big gold purse and gunning me down.

Admiration and Bogeys.

January 31, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Toddlers: The Experience

On Thursday, we kept Abby for a little while. Abby is three and a half, and so Ali was quite excited about having a “big kid” come and play.

She was totally in awe.

She kept pointing at her and saying “Abbbby”, in this dreamy-I-am-so-lucky-to-know-you sort of way. One time she poked Abby’s shirt when she said it. Abby looked down at her shirt and said, “No, that’s Winnie-The-Pooh.”

I was amazed at how well Ali shared. She has a bit of only-child tendencies already – if another kid is even in the room, she runs and pick up her toys, clutches them to her chest, and says “Ali have it!!!”.

But with Abby, she was so thankful to be in her presence that she would go get one of her favorite toys, give it to Abby, and turn to me and say, “Ali shares with Abby!!” in this super excited voice.I mean, you would have thought Abby were Hannah Montana or something.

Not that Ali knows who Hannah Montana is.

Okay, you would have thought Abby were Thomas the Train or something.

And Abby had her own amount of admiration for Ali:
Being that she has three brothers, having one-on-one time with another girl is quite a treat, I do believe.

And one other note: I know my child’s head circumference is just barely in the charts again, but it isn’t right that her head is twice the size of someone who is almost twice her age.
Of course, Abby’s hair style does a lot to understate her head, and Ali’s hairstyle does a lot to accentuate the hugosity of hers.

Anyway.

Earlier that day, we were at the Summit and walking across a wide corner of the parking lot. It was sunny, but crisp. About halfway through our walk, Ali reached up and touched her nose, then worriedly said, “Ali’s nose is getting cold!!”, as if she were warning me that she was going to come down with frostbite any minute now.

A minute later, she felt it again, and informed me of the shocking progress of her worsening condition: “Ali’s BOGEYS are getting cold!!!”

So the next morning, I was sure to ask to make sure that she didn’t have any permanent damage: “How are your bogeys today?”

She greatly relieved my fears when she informed me, “Feeling better!”.

You can find a few more silly Ali stories hanging out at B-Sides today.

It Wasn’t as Hard as it Looked Like it Would be Harder Than it Looked

January 30, 2009 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, I embarrass myself just for your amusement.

. . . and it certainly wasn’t as hard as that title is to understand.

So I’ve been wanting some artwork for the house. You know, to put something on our walls besides the 7,065 pictures of Ali that are currently smothering them.

I have always been very fond of geometric art. Especially with bright colors. I just love it – it’s so fun and joyful. I’ve looked for some lately, and it was just very pricey and small canvases. My favorite of late was the artwork at Newk’s.

I kept looking at it and kept looking at it and mentioned to Chris, “It sure seems like I could do that.”

His response was, “I bet it’s harder than it looks.”

Then, a couple of weeks later, Amanda and I went there, and I told her that I wanted to try painting something similar.

Her response was, “I bet it’s harder than it looks.”

Well, their overwhelming confidence in me gave me the boost that I needed to try it.

Not that I deserved any confidence at all – I have absolutely NO artistic skills. At least when it comes to drawing things that resemble something. I couldn’t render a drawing of a person at a more technical level than a stick person to save my life. As I’ve told you a couple of times, Ali’s artistic skills have already surpassed mine. It doesn’t take much.

But I have always loved doodling geometric designs, and have had some success in drawing “mathematical art” in the past, such as Celtic Knotwork:
(I drew that for a birthday present for Chris while we were “just friends” – but we started dating mere days after. The power of art, I tell ya.)

So I decided to do some research photography and take pictures of the paintings in Newk’s that I liked.

Of course it was a super-busy night at Newk’s, so that made subtle photography impossible. I took this picture from across the restaurant, without holding my camera up, and with no flash to try to not draw attention to myself. I’m sure this guy appreciates being in my research:
This one was a little easier to take sneakily, since it was in the bathroom hallway:Ok: So I had my research.

Then I went to Michael’s and attempted to buy painting supplies for less than the cost of an original Monet. I actually lucked out, because I found a 10 color paint set that was missing a color. It was the last one they had, so I took it up to the counter and asked if I could get a discount since a color was missing. The ~~grumpy~~ elderly cashier looked at me doubtfully and said she’d have to ask the manager. The young and sweet manager came over and said without missing a beat, “Sure! I can mark 75% off. Will that work?”

Um, YES!?!

So I got my supplies.

Next step: decide what geometric designs that I wanted in my picture and sketch it out:
I knew I wanted the squares, because we have that design recurring in our living room, and I thought it would be fun to match it in a painting.

Next step: sketch my final draft in pencil on my canvas.
I started by very ruler-heavy and mathematically sketching my squares:
Then freehanded the rest of the plan:
Finally! On to using bright and fun colors!! Here was my day one’s accomplishments:
Day two:
Day three:
You might have noticed in the corner of that picture that I had the privilege of working side by side with another artist:
My original plan was to only work on it when Ali was asleep, but after she caught sight of what I was doing, she begged to “paint with Mommy”, so we actually had a couple of sessions where she colored and I painted. It was a much better deal, except for those times that she felt the need to grab my arm while I was doing intricate, straight lines.

Well, they were supposed to be straight anyway.

Day four, I put the final touches on: the all-important black lines to make it look a little neater:
And, in case you wondered, I did paint the edges as well:
Total time for whole process: approximately 4 – 5 hours.

Now obviously I know that anyone who knows anything about art would probably point out all of the flaws in my strokes, technique, color coordination, and my EXTREME lack of a steady hand (which I can thankfully blame in part to my partner in paint), but it was a lot of fun, and it wasn’t as hard as it looked like it would be harder than it looked!

Say It Forward Friday: Jennifer, Jaci, and Ann Marie.

January 30, 2009 Rachel Callahan Say it Forward Friday

It’s time for another Say it Forward Friday!!

I have a themed Say it Forward Friday this week!! I am featuring three commenters that go to my church and I pass in the hallways all the time, but now I know them better, solely because of blogging.

Blogging and commenting on other people’s blogs are amazing tools for keeping up with and really connecting with people that you might never connect that much with otherwise. It is just another reason that I am totally in love with it!

So, without further ado, today’s featured commenters are:

Jennifer – Of Heaven and Earth – Jennifer and I have gone to church together since we were both kids. We are connected in so many ways – she graduated one year after my husband at SMCS, her brother was my cousin’s best friend, we’ve played on the praise team together, and on and on. But we never really connected or talked much – but now that we have gotten to know each other through blogging, I consider her a great friend! She has three adorable kids and we enjoyed going to her youngest, Amy Beth’s, Birthday party last week:

Ali especially enjoyed her party favor, makeup – an idea that Jennifer got because of my posts about her love of makeup:
Amy Beth, however, preferred the cake:
Ali LOVED (rather overpoweringly) “showing” Amy Beth how to use her new toys:
But Amy Beth caught on to what was going on here and learned the “death grip to the heart” to keep Ali from “helping” her with her coins:
I love how she has that extra measure of security for her coin by using her chin.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and getting to know me better, Jennifer!!

Jaci – The Spains – Jaci and I have even been in the same Sunday School class for years, but we had never hung out together until we connected through blogging. Our girls LOVE each other, and have so much fun together!!

We went to the park a few weeks ago, and Mia and Averi loved swinging so much. . .
that their peer pressure got Ali in the swing for a few minutes (a newly developed fear of swinging has kept her from thoroughly enjoying the playground over the past few months – thanks, Mia and Averi!!)
Thanks for being a part of my blog, Jaci!!

Ann Marie – Le Blog De Ree – Ann Marie and I have also known each other for years, and, as she wrote about not too long ago, used to be quite close friends!! But not until AFTER my brother broke up with her. :) But changes in life and small groups and everything in the world got us out of touch.

However, over the past year, I’ve really loved getting to get re-acquainted with her via our blogs. I don’t really have a recent picture to illustrate our relationship, but Ann Marie and I have been in many, many weddings together (including both of our own, where we were each others maid and matron of honor, but alas, those were the days before (gasp) digital photography, so I don’t have those pictures on my computer), so here is a picture of us in the last wedding we enjoyed together, my brother JC and Lindsay’s:
I’m on the bottom left (duh!) and Ann Marie is on the top right.
Thanks, Ann Marie, for being a silent encourager to start a blog, and for loyally reading mine!

Please be sure to visit my beloved featured commenter’s blogs by clicking on their names, and be sure to say hello!! And don’t forget to check back next Friday. . .you never know when you might be featured!!!

To go see everyone else’s Say it Forward post, head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom!!!

Mysteries of Toddlerdom

January 29, 2009 Rachel Callahan Toddlers: The Experience

Sometimes, things happen or Ali says things that I can’t figure out for the life of me, like that time she said a sentence very urgently all week and I never could understand her.

The other day, she handed down another great mystery. Lucky for me, though, this one was solved.

Ali had just woken up and I was preparing her breakfast. I called for her to come eat, and she arrived soaked – she had water all down her shirt.

I looked all around for the puddle (or river) of whatever she had apparently found and spilled. No luck. Looked in the kitchen, living room, dining room, office. . . nothing.

I asked Ali, “how did you get wet?”. Ali responded, “Oro!!”, as if that completely explained it.

The cat?!?

Now Oreo isn’t one to usually be suspected of foul play, but based on Ali’s testimony, I got down and smelled her shirt. Surely Oreo didn’t. . .

Nope. . . no smell. And we ALL know that cat pee is the MOST pungent odor on planet earth. Must be water.

Still can’t find any puddles.

Tried to pry more information out of Ali, but she refused to elaborate on the source of her sogginess.

So I put the mystery aside and fed her breakfast.

That evening, when Chris got home, Ali was reaching up on the kitchen counter, saying “Oro’s water!!”.

She got the spray bottle that we sometimes spray Oreo with for punishment and started spraying her shirt in quite familiar looking patterns.

Aha!

Just call me Nancy Drew.

Wii Cheat With Feet.

January 28, 2009 Rachel Callahan Deception: A Parent's Best Friend, Utter Silliness

It all started out innocently enough. . .

As you know, Ali loves Wii Fit. So she was playing last night, and Chris was helping her score better (of course, she was oblivious to the fact that she was getting help).
. . . but by doing so, he discovered that the balance games are actually MUCH easier to play sitting down (kinda defeats the purpose of Wii FIT), and next thing I know, Little Wii Ali took my top spot at advanced Skiing:
But THEN I left the room for a minute, and when I came back, Chris guiltily admitted to this:Yeah. My soccer ball head-butting score used to be twice what his was.

Now obviously, sit-down-Wii completely defeats the point and doesn’t **really** count. But when you put two super-duper-competitive-(all in fun of course, mostly)-perfectionists and pit them against each other by keeping up with top scores then they discover a way to cheat, temptation can just overpower.

hmm. . . I’m home and he’s not. . .

Nope, I’m not gonna do it.

I’m gonna take the high road.

And instead of beating ALL of his high scores, I will blog about his chiiting instead.

Disclaimer: This post is just meant in fun, as is our competition.

Wordless Wednesday – Appreciating the Beauty Around Us

January 28, 2009 Rachel Callahan Wordless Wednesday - as IF I could be wordless.

Sometimes when I dream about going to the beach or to Europe or to anywhere exotic, I forget that there are stunningly gorgeous places in my own city. I took Ali to appreciate one of them for the first time today [AND DON’T WORRY: Objects in picture are MUCH farther away from the fence than they appear]:
I asked her to laugh for me so that I could get a picture of her smiling. . .
then she said, “one more time” and laughed again:At Tip Top, Shades Crest Road.

And, speaking of appreciating the beauty around me, Ali wanted to play “take a nap” with Daddy when he got home:Visit my other Wordless Wednesday post at B-Sides!
Visit everyone else’s at 5 Minutes for Mom!

Fool Me Twice. . .

January 27, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Denim Drama, Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Just My Luck

Okay. So you remember my pledge against designer jeans after my first pair ever (that I bought for $22 – 90% off) shredded in 6 months?

And then remember how all of YOU kept going on in the comments about how GREAT designer jeans are and how I must have just gotten a bad pair and how you can’t possibly imagine living without them?

Yeah, thanks for the resolve boost.

So every now and then, I have been checking out the clearance racks to see if I could find any. Note that I said Clearance racks because I certainly wasn’t going to pay more for them than I would a regular pair of jeans, but they are oh-so-comfy and nice-fitting. . .

And I’ve been picky. I mean, I wasn’t going to buy any old pair of jeans just because they were designer, on clearance, and I could manage to cram my body into them. No, they had to be flattering, comfortable, and CHEAP.

And, as an aside, if you’re wondering why I care about brand names and designers, be sure to check out Jennifer’s post where she was exploring the same issue. I commented and listed my reasons, and she called me shallow :) – a fun post for sure! And you might want to weigh in your opinion on the issue as well. . .or further back up Jennifer’s claim of my lack of depth.

Back to the story.

I finally ran across a pair last week. Citizens of Humanity. By the way, why do all designer jeans have to sound like New Age Cults? True Religion, Seven for all Mankind, Citizens of Humanity . . . anyway, they were soooo soft. . . and flattering, and nice in color and style. They were about 70% off, and just slightly more than I would pay for normal jeans.

SO I wandered through the dark hallways of deceptive marketing once again and took the plunge into the pool of brand-name-materialism.

And they were so great. They stretched out just right, they “felt good”, I was happy.

Until, on my second wearing of them, the metal placket on the back pocket popped off. It hung at this nice angle and left a hole where it belonged:
Classy, huh?

I DO love the quality you get with designer jeans. You just can’t beat it. Gee.

So I brainstormed on how to fix it, but since I don’t exactly have a riveting machine (where’s Stella from Project Runway when you need her?!?!), I couldn’t think of an acceptable solution that wouldn’t make the problem worse down the road. So I decided to email Citizens of Humanity and ask them what I could do about my problem.

They sent me back a form letter that said that this almost NEVER happens to their jeans and that this is a very rare occurrence (which I found ironic since it was obviously a form letter), but that they didn’t do direct exchanges since there were so many counterfeits on the market, so I needed to take them back to the store that I purchased them from (implied message: “as if you purchased them at a store and not in a back alley for $4.99”).

I was really asking how to fix the problem, but since this NEVER happens to their jeans, I suppose that they had no idea how to fix them.

So I decided to take them back to good ole’ Belk (seriously people: How DID that name get by the focus groups?!? If your name is Mr. Macy, by all means, name your store after yourself. Or if your name is Nordstrom or Bromberg or . . . .BUT NOT IF YOUR NAME IS MR. BELK!!!) and they said that I could exchange them, but of course since they were 70% off, they were sold out.

And, for the record, oh ye Citizens of Humanity, the very knowledgeable Belk clerk that was helping me examined them in hopes of helping me fix them, and pointed out that the rivets were barely in the pockets, and the figured that even if I could have exchanged them, it would have happened all over again.

However, I really liked the jeans so I didn’t want to just return them, so I attempted again to email Citizens of Humanity. I told them that Belk didn’t have any more and were there any other options?

I got an eerily familiar form letter back in response.

So, I had to take matters into my own hands.

I had to go to Michael’s today anyway, so I got some super-duper fabric glue. I’ve glued ’em, and they’re “setting up”. We’ll see if it does the trick.

Wouldn’t Citizens of Humanity be proud that their jeans were now held together by glue purchased for $2.99?