.Moving

Its finally here!

We found a cute, cute house. Granted, it is in Nixa, MO .. its an adorable 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage with an enormous backyard that Sebastian loves :] Its perfect for our family. I'm so, so excited about having house projects to work, room to do OTHER projects, just some ROOM. Sheeesh I could go on all day, it really is perfect. We move in in two days!!

I've known moving was coming [yet done nothing about it] and thought and daydreamed about finally getting out of our cramped little townhouse... yet now that its upon me, its incredibly daunting and exhausting thinking about it. we have a LOT of stuff!! But really, its the nostalgia, as silly as it is. That is the house we were SO DAMN PROUD to have 2 years ago. Finally on our feet with our OWN place just the two of us...about to be three. I remember when we moved in, and how good that felt. Then I remember waking up at 4 AM with contractions from hell, and staring at the same wall with the same Bob poster thru 20 straights hours of labor. I remember leaving, and then I remember the joy in bringing my baby boy home, to be in his nursery and new room with all of his things for the first time. I remember when we first learned to roll over, on the living room floor. I remember when we took his first wobbly steps, right there in the kitchen. I remember bath times and book times and Nemo times and now as time goes on we grow and explore along with Sebastian. I will miss having those spots to look to and remember the fondest things, but so very excited to explore a whole new place and be beyond excited, just like my 2 year old.

I will always dwell on the past, no matter what. But I know this is best for us, and there are so many exciting things and new memories to look forward to.

Now...if only I could motivate my second half...

and if my body can find its second wind.

Fingers Crossed!

Day we moved into our duplex - 2 years ago!

.Sebastian

Sebastian Kale Benedict

It's time for a Meet&Greet with my main man.. :]

Sebastian on his BIRTHday!!

& coming home from the hospital!

Growing up too fast....

Milestones and First Birthdays :]]

Life Recently...

i am so, so very blessed. I thank whatever it is out there for this little guy. He has brought me something inside I never knew I possessed. It's incredible.

You will hear more and more about this little dude. He is so smart and So.Damn.Cute. He's also soo ornery, and LUCKY he is so cute bc he gets away with WAY more than he should!!

EXAMPLE....

[Mommy friends, please help!!]

My child likes his poop. I dont know if its the feel of it, surely not the smell! I think its because it looks and feels like mud, but lord I dont know. everytime he is left somewhat alone [or he goes and sneaks off] after he goes, he digs his poo out of his diaper and spreads it everywhere! and i mean EVERYWHERE! Yesterday it was all over every surface of his crib, all blankets and toys, the wall, the floor, AHH the list goes on! This poop party, aka Shitstorm, took an HOUR to clean! Scrub, Scrub, Scrub....POOP POOP POOP! Most ridiculous thing, and I have no idea how to stop it. We thought we could "power through" until potty training...this is getting out of hand. He did it AGAIN last night, and that was the last straw for me. I want to duct tape his diaper on and his hands by his sides lol. Ohhhh lord what do I dooooo???? These are the things [diasters when in the sitc, hilarious outside of the situation!] On top of everything else, cleaning shit off my walls and floors and kid is the last thing i want to be doing. SOLUTION PLEASE!!!!

So thats the sneak peak of my Sebastian Kale. If your lucky enough you can come hang out with this little dude!

Changes.

Ah, life's surprised us once again. After struggling for months to figure out just what we were going to do... whether we were going or staying, buying or renting, or joining the commune, we have finally made a decision! All would be proud, with my want for a 5 year plan I settled for a 3month plan, then another big decision! But for now we are moving to Nixa! We got an awesome little house [much bigger than what were in!] with an awesome fenced in backyard all ready with a garden, shed, clothes line, playground and gorgeous walnut trees :D. I am SO EXCITED!!!
Andrew found his own apartment and we'll all be moving next weekend. Not only are we moving but a LOT of things are going to change along with it. More about that later... ;]

Life's been cluttered. I'm ready to clean things out and start new. There's lots of things I'd love to get rid of...but cannot. So I shall push on, and work on patience. Everyday its taxing and I'm trying to learn something new. But I've never been patient and curious if I ever will be. But, I will ever keep trying.

If I have a clone of myself, life would be SO MUCH EASIER. I want soo many things; a happy, healthy kid, a clean house, a nice yard, plentiful garden, a home-cooked meal, a nice paycheck, paid bills, time for oddball jobs, time for hobbies and time to enjoy summer. Sadly, half of that never gets done :/ I love my little man more than words can describe, but damn, it is hard to get things done with a two year old! If only I could fastforward the moving process, and someone would clean the old house for me, Ha! There is just way too many things to do, and way too little time to do it. It doesn't help that Tony and I don't see each other during the work week, so no time to get things done together, either.

But we shall press on! I know we will work everything out and it will all fall into place, funny... our relationship seems to always make that happen. Trying hard today to let go and enjoy the ride.. always over too quick.

Oil Spill

I feel the need to give my two cents.
Take a penny, leave a penny.

I’ll start with.. I feel completely helpless. I know nothing of the workings of pipelines and oil drillings. I know nothing of the politics behind the scenes that none of us see. I know nothing of the inner workings of the government and how much they may just be screwing us over and killing our world for their profit and advantage. I have no idea how to help, how to solve this disaster our people created.
But what I do know, is if you are brilliant enough to come up with this operation of drilling oil and created underwater pipelines that pump billions of gallons of oil a day… would you not be brilliant enough to have a safety plan? A “worst-case-scenario” solution? Really? It truly shows our lives are run by one thing: money, with no respect to others or our astonishing world whatsoever.
I’ve been trying to keep up with the oil spill. But other new stories seem to be clouding the way. Such as: Lindsay Lohan’s SCRAM bracelet went off. What will the world do? The teen who decided to sail her little boat around the world [ambitious, yes. Stupid? Maybe a little.] I don’t mean to dog the girl… But the amount of rescue boats, planes, helicopters that were sent after her distress call…the ones that were continued to be sent even after her condition was checked… where is everyone in the gulf?? Where are the rescue boats to save the marine life? WHERE THE HELL IS BP?!?!?!???!?!?!?!?!
I listened to NPR this morning. It was an entire segment on scientist from all over America the west spending time calculating and estimating and testing the AMOUNT of oil being spilled into our oceans everyday. SO MANY people are so caught up in numbers… how much… how much should we sue BP for.. How much money is it going to take to clean it up…how much oil it out there. Yet, the last news report I heard was they were gonna try a little mud, then they were gonna break off the pipeline that was causing the incident and hope it didn’t spill more. Hey estimating scientists….get your ass down south and FIGURE OUT A SOLUTION. FIX THIS!
From MSNBC:
BP has taken a stab at soothing angry Americans, airing a slick, multimillion-dollar national TV spot this week in which Hayward pledges: "We will make this right." Hayward also promised BP would clean up every drop of oil and "restore the shoreline to its original state." President Barack Obama said the money spent on the ads should have gone to cleanup and compensating devastated fisherman and small business owners.
Couldn’t have said it better myself…
I feel hypocritical getting so frustrated with these people… they are just people after all…. But I cannot wrap my head around why they spend so much time, energy, money on what they are going to tell the people… the numbers everyone wants to know! IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THIS???
I get so frustrated just typing this Its hard to put conjugate thoughts together.
I want to help, so bad. I would love to give my time, but that is impossible. I would give money, but I am distrusting as of late, I cant believe it will get into the hands that will use it to make progress. What do I do?
What do we do? We are losing precious Earth here people….

WAKAWAKARUUUSA!
2010

**STS9
**Widespread Panic
**Disco Biscuits
**Umphree’s McGee
**Dweizle Zappa plays Zappa
**JJ Grey & Mofro
**Railroad Earth
**Bluestraveler
**Bassnecter
**EOTO

Just to name a fewww.
I was so excited to come home and write an amazing blog; describing experiences and emotions of each day and each photo captured. I wanted to remember Waka as it was sure to be quite memorable.
The shows were great, the lights were stunning. The sun was hott and the mountain lit up at night with Glo toys and fire. The breeze was warm and refreshing, the showers was a line I was not willing to wait. There was some great people. There was some shitty people….
We arrived in Cass, AR around 3:30AM only to sit in line down a mountain, wait in line at will call, wait in line at security, and wait in line to get into the festival. By 5:30AM it was WAKA time and the excitement, along with sleep deprivation was a trip all its own. After set up adrenaline kept us awake so went went on our first venture. We made a direct line towards the main stage to check out the main stage and set up. We walked maybe a couple hundred yards and Tony says “Man, I wonder if Mo has made it” and pulls out his phone to call her. Same time I was saying “Isn’t that your sister?“ I went the entire festival without seeing some folks I’d like to have seen, and we ran into Monique first thing. Great to see her, been too long. They were still setting up camp so we continued our journey. The first folks we came to were very generous dears from Wisconsin. We chilled with them for the good part of the morning and got a great taste for the life of the weekend. Good friends you immediately connect with. Excitement rising for the shows to come. We decided to try to then get some sleep..Maybe got in two hours and the heat in the tent sent us sprawling in the grass where the sun burned our ass so we were up for the day.
I knew better than to not wear sunscreen… being the whitey I am had to protect that ‘dermis! Still, instead of getting the expected burn.. I developed a horrible heat rash that lasted the remainder of the weekend. The bumps were EVERYWHERE and most were blisters, which looked awful. Yum. [Still have the worst ones on my arm!]
Of course, as festie’s do.. The weekend flew by. Friends and family and sun and naps and live music and fair food and crazy lights and lasers and love….
Every night the stars were incredible. They were bigger and brighter and completely covered the night sky. I saw and appreciated more stars that weekend than I ever have in my life. I felt so small in the world, yet so secure and one. I wished so desperately each night that I had a camera to photograph the magnitude that I saw, the weight of the world lifted and the clear night sky. What a sensation.
We met some amazing people. One, an oldie in the jam scene named Ed. He ran a tent full of great swag and most selection of instruments. Tony has his eye on a carved instrument and we frequented his tent throughout the weekend. On Saturday T was going to give in and buy the wooden whatever-it-is and Ed told us he had sold out, his only one left was not working well, and needed some glue in some spots. He then gave Tony the thing and explained how to fix it, which he could have done himself for 5 bucks and sold it for 60. We stayed and chatted and learned his awesome history. Techie for all the bands we love. Hung out with Jerry and Donna Godcheaux [who’s son was at Waka!]. The stories and experiences he had were amazing..his generosity floored me. He found out it was our honeymoon and insisted he would not let us leave the tent without picking out gifties we wanted, for free. Great vibes from this guy .
Waka was unorganized..but the people working the core of the thing really cared about the people and their experiences. I was impressed with that.
Then Saturday night after WP we went back to the tent to grab some water or something before Umphree’s… being the lame old asses we are, finally baby free and just so excited to sleep! We passed out outside just sitting there.. Apparently at some point tony moved to the blanket spread out on the blanket on the ground and I stumbled to the tent [this I don’t remember..] next thing I know its barely 6AM and tonys freaking out… someone stole his bag that he fell asleep cuddling. Actually spooning a bag and someone had the balls to take it…. Now its not some any old bag [ok, the bag was from walmart!] but the CONTENTS of that bag…oh man. BOTH wallets, cards, id’s, ss cards, insurance, unemployment, over 750 in cash and my BRAND F’ING NEW IPHONE IVE WANTED FOR SO LONG, both cameras, ALL waka memorabilia and sooo much more.
Seriously????
No, SERIOUSLY?!?!?
I want to run away, where no one can find me.
Where no one is around shitty enough to steal my stuff.
What I go to work for day in and day out. 99% of the time you know what I do? I work my ass off. At work, as a manager, as an agent, as an office bitch, as a bounty hunter. Then at the end of the day, I come home and bust my ass as a mom, a maid, a nurse, a cook, a best friend to a 2 year old. Then TINY amount of money I can save up, to combine our BIG trip this summer into our HONEYMOON..gets ripped away. Probably by some drugged out kid who was there for the wrong reasons anyways. It still makes me sick. I know if you know me, I’ve bitched about this enough.. But for real, c’mon, SERIOUSLY? Why does this keep happening to me??? I know I made some STUPID decisions in High School and some in college. I know that I had some skeletons that their karma had definently bit me in the ass, and I LEARNED from it. I wisened up. I grew up. I became the person I WANTED to be. A person I am proud of. An honest, decent, hardworking, loving and FORGIVING person. Only to have this stance tested, time and time and time and TIME again. I don’t know how much I can take. I t makes me want to close off my heart, for fear that there is so little good in the world. I want to distrust all I see and be on constant lookout. But how is that for a lifestyle?? What a shitty way to live. It hurts me, still.
DEAR THEIVES: PLEASE STOP STEALING MY SHIT!!! MORE THAN LIKELY IF YOU ASK FOR IT, I’LL GIVE IT TO YOU.
I’m not sure what all this is supposed to be teaching me, but SURELY my karma is not that bad. I hope I’ll come into some clarity and stop feeling so bummy about this.
ANYWAYS, as you can imagine, that was a true bummer. The festie pretty much ended there for us. Shitty close to what would have been an awesome weekend.
Plus side, holding my baby boy again was incredible, and a high all its own. I love that little man.
Can’t decide, but Harvest Fest is having Keller and the Keels, and I cannot imagine missing it. Yet, I’m so turned off by what we experienced that I’m worried about another fest. We need this to pass!

mah baby and i on the moutain, jammin' in the heat :]