Troubled Waters Art Show

Ross had an artist's reception for another show today! He had 5 pieces in the show, all some of the best works there.

The boys and I are so proud of him! They loved his name tag - "Ross Becht, Artist" and of course, the snacks!

All in all a great show. It closes May 30th.

To see more about the pieces Ross had at the show, check out his website!

www.RossBecht.com

Ross Becht, Artist!

Ross has a website! And an Instagram! Check them out here:

Ross Becht, Artist

(a little preview of the awesome work he's been doing, which is available for sale on our Etsy site):

And here's his Instagram. Follow him!

Ross Becht Instagram

A New Series

Ross has gotten started on a new series! Here come airplanes!!!

 He starts by designing the images in a program called SketchUp, which lets him make 3D models of the planes. He loves this, because he loves planes and engineering. It's a perfect match.

Once he's happy with the designs, he prints them out and uses his super cool Huion LED Light Pad to trace the image onto watercolor paper. 

Seriously this thing is so cool - adjustable brightness, flexible, super light and even ever-so-slightly sticky.
Thanks dad!

Then, he fills the plane with masking fluid, which is kind of like rubber cement, but easy to remove. That way, he can paint the sky and the background without having to worry about going outside (or inside) the lines. 

 This is as far as he's gotten on any of them now, but there are 4 different planes in different states of completion hanging out on our lovely dining room table right now. The kiddo is going nuts trying to get at them!

I imagine we'll have a whole series of planes up and listed on Etsy within a week or so! I'm excited!!!

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I'm thankful today for Campbell's tomato soup, because it tastes like my childhood. Also for safe spaces to talk about tricky things, new opportunities, glittery orange nailpolish, and Canada, because they made this awesome commercial:

SEO, or learning how to tag

This whole thing really is an adventure in learning how to work the internet. I really thought I understood how search and other stuff worked, but I definitely did not. I learned yesterday that the tags I use on Etsy should be phrases, not individual words! I'd been putting up all the individual words that I thought would make up the searches people would use to find our stuff. So my tags for the cute little Penguin Painting on Etsy yesterday read something like this:

penguin
painting
watercolor
original
black
white
8x10
kids room

But that's no good! People would need to just search for "painting" or "black" in order for any of Ross's work to show up. So now, I've been slowly working on updating the tags, and it actually helped already! Now, the tags look more like this:

greeting cards
paper goods
butterfly cards
blank cards
thank you cards
custom cards
monarch butterfly

A couple of the things I edited have already started getting some more action on Etsy. People are favoriting them, and following the shop, which is awesome! I'm also trying out the tag "Mother in law gift" becaue I feel like that might be one of the toughest gifts to figure out, and I think that the butterfly cards in particular would be good for moms in law! We'll see...my fingers are crossed!

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I'm thankful today for egg-nog, space heaters, mirepoix, colleagues who keep me sane in the midst of a ton of crazy, and my sister, who told me that it's ok to let things slide, just for a bit, every once in a while. And she's so right.

Random stuff about my day

The kiddo just woke up from a nap, and walked out to see Ross hard at work on a set of animal greeting cards. He ran over to the table, excitedly said "Daddy painting!" and when Ross agreed, "Yes, I'm painting, thanks for letting me know that," E replied with "Hooray, goojob daddy!"

Too cute. Probably way cuter to me than to you, but it's kind of my job to think he's the best.

Ross finished up a set of cards today - they're super cute. Haven't photographed them yet since the sun went down before they were completed, but it's been very bright and sunny this weekend, so I'm hopeful for tomorrow.

E learned to open the baby gates this weekend. We have SO much kidproofing to do, it's ridiculous.

On the better side of kid learning, he also learned to talk about himself in the first person. Kind of. Now, instead of "Emmett did it" he says "I did it Emmett." So we're close.

Etsy Etsy Etsy

We've sold 5 pieces! And have a request for a custom order on a 6th! This is so exciting! The stuffed animal paintings seem to be the biggest hit, with the butterflies a close second. We're scrambling to get everything ready to go - for some reason, I thought it would take longer for people to make purchases, but nope! They're buying away! I just love the thought of Ross's art hanging on people's walls - it makes me so happy having it here, I just know it'll make other people smile too.

Here's what we've sold so far:

Butterfly Greeting Card Set

Penguin Painting

Animals Greeting Card Set

Blue Butterfly

Panda Bear Painting

I've been having fun figuring out all the little nooks and crannies on Etsy. I started following several people; mostly family and friends, but also a few people who have excellent taste, like Anastaisha and Denise.

I also started using Treasuries, which is kind of like creating tiny little shops or museum displays. Hunt down items that fit into a particular theme, display them, and ta-da, mini-Pinterest! I have no idea which of the two came first, but I love using both of them to organize my ideas. So far I only have one treasury, called Ooooh, Sparkly, all about the things I would have loved, or did love, when I was younger and highly motivated by glitter. (To be honest, I would still buy all those things now, because I'm still highly motivated by glitter. And Neil Diamond).

It's also a lot like my Pinterest board called Sparkly. Like I said, glitter. I'm always amazed when people get upset about being glitter-bombed. That's a dream come true, not a weapon!

 I'm working on another treasury called Hauntingly Beautiful (I know, it's stolen from an episode of How I Met Your Mother, but "The Pineapple Incident" is probably the best episode of that show ever. So there!) I had it all done, but I must've forgotten to hit "save" or something, because my description is there, but my items aren't. Dangit! I'll redo it and share it at some point.

Also, I think there's a chance I could get Ross into creating Treasury lists. He likes hunting things down, seeing threads of connection between things that others might miss, and really really loves things that contrast harsh and delicate in adept ways. That's kind of what he likes to do with his art, so it makes sense he'd like it when other people do it well, too.

He also got really into my Pinterest board called "Ross Makes Things." The second I showed it to him, he was off and running with ideas and critiques, so we may start adding wooden toys and other things to the shop sooner than later!

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I'm thankful today for being an adult. It means I can have pie for dinner if I want, which was exactly what I did want. Also, for Lysol. It was needed. Hot toddies with lots of lemon and honey and whiskey and Grand Marnier left over from Thanksgiving (we're getting sick around here - the kiddo is crying and being consoled by Ross as we speak). And for a job that lets me bring my kid to work when necessary without batting an eye. I'm so lucky to work where I do. Finally, I'm thankful that Ross turned on the heater. Seriously, the man NEVER does this. But today (probably because he's getting sick too), he did. Which means I'm almost warm for the first time in ages!

Email Sent!

So Ross and I sent out an email letting all our family know about the art he's been making. I'm so nervous and excited that we've really done it - we're actually trying to get his wonderful art sold, and I love it! Here's the gist of what we told everyone:

     Happy Holidays family! Here's hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you're all headed into an even better year-end celebration. Ross and I definitely have a lot to be thankful for this year, and one of those things is the recent chance to start a business together!

      As you may know, Ross is an artist. Way back when, before I stole him away from art school in New York, he had plans to be a professional graphic designer, painter and art teacher. His art was actually one of the things that made me love him so much - it was thoughtful and striking and so gorgeous. Once he moved out to California, other jobs became his priority, and rather than being his career, Ross's art became a hobby.  

     Recently, though, a few of his pieces were featured in a benefit auction (full disclosure - I planned the auction and convinced him to let me include his work), and, just like I knew they would, his paintings sold quickly! Soon after that, I was able to convince him to give "artist" another shot as a career choice, and now here we are, launching our business together! He makes the art, I write about it, and we're hopeful that you all will like his work as much as I do (being a serious artist, Ross will never admit to liking anything he's created...but he sure does beam with pride when Emmett asks him to tell stories about the bear and penguin he's painting!)
Called "Paint By Number Parents," our home-based, online, decorative art shop offers unique and one-of-a-kind paintings and photographs created by Ross, with the occasional addition from me. Our products are designed with both kids and parents in mind - art that is sweet and kid friendly, but also appealing to parents. 

     It's been great fun brainstorming design ideas with Ross, and I think a lot of the fun shows in the things we have for sale - adorable animal watercolors, custom made name or initial paintings, fancy and impressive watercolor greeting cards, canvas mounted photographs, with unique lighted paintings and more soon to come!

We offered a coupon there for some awesome items like Ross's Stuffed Animal Greeting Cards, or one of my favorite photographs from our honeymoon, and I'm going to throw a great deal out here too! 

Use the coupon code "Holiday2013" and we'll give you 30% off anything in the shop. Free shipping! We'd love for you to use it, hopefully on something you really like. 

Crossing my fingers, cause here we go!

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I'm thankful today for butter on popcorn, tin foil, Thanksgiving leftovers, rock-paper-scissors, and driving around with the heat on and windows down

How to Find Your Passion, Part 2

Disclaimer: If you're reading this with a lot of grammatical mistakes and a sort of speech/ stream of consciousness vibe/ flagrant abuse of ellipses... then that means Lyn didn't edit this too much, we have very different writing styles. If you're reading this and it's grammatically correct... then that means that she edited it... and deleted this whole disclaimer.

Oh, and I haven't read her answers to the questions brought up by this article yet so this should be interesting.

Step 1: Answer the Question: What do you love?

I love creating things...painting obviously...otherwise I think the name of this blog would be different... but also woodworking, drawing, cooking...and wildly obscure metaphors to explain concepts (ask me about my football based Congestive Heart Failure explanation sometime). There's a lot of pride in a finished piece that you're happy with.

I also love teaching people things/ being the guy with the answers. Seeing someone "get it," whether it's a difficult new concept, or an activity that they've never tried, is a pretty awesome feeling. Explaining a medical condition and the treatment to a patient so they truly understood and felt more confident about letting me working on them, talking politics or sociology with someone in a way that they understand it's relation to current events, science (what little I know)...that sort of stuff. Teaching probably wouldn't be a bad choice for me if it wasn't for being surrounded by loud, obnoxious, Know-it-all kids. (I remember myself in high school)

I love the adrenalin rush of a win in a stressful situation. Like an live-fire ambush or room clearing exercise drill in the Marine Corps or an acute medical call on the ambulance where you're always one step ahead and watching the patient improve with the treatment choices you made.

Step 2: Answer the Question: What do you loathe?

I loathe busy work... might explain my decision not to re-enlist. If there is not logical, productive reason to be doing something other than "because I said so," don't make me do it. I can totally accept "I don't have time to explain it to you right now, so get it done and I'll explain it all to you later," or even better, "there's absolutely no good reason to be doing this but I want you to look busy in case my bosses walk in." (Emmett, if you read this someday "because I said so" is a totally acceptable reason for me to give to you!)

I loathe people being mean or disrespectful just because of a misplaced sense of authority...public service, municipal, local, and federal is all service to the people, not the other way around. Your badge, stars, bars, stripes, degrees, title, or office don't give you the right to belittle, ignore, or disregard somebody's wishes. You don't have to honor them but you do have to recognize and consider them.

I loathe working retail.  From corporate to customers to pay, with the occasional exception of coworkers there is almost no redeeming quality to working retail. I'm thinking no one is getting barista for any corporate outfits as their dream job.

I loathe inconsiderate people who are oblivious of their surroundings. People who stop in the middle of aisles, people who let their kids run amok, people who feel that they are the most important person in the world and everyone else need to submit to their will. (see: the majority of customers I encountered working retail).

Step 3: Discover the Seven Seeds of Your Soul

1. Even if you didn’t get paid a cent for it, would you still do this? I'd do (and right now I am doing) art without getting paid. I probably wouldn't volunteer teach and I definitely wouldn't go back to being a Marine or a Paramedic without getting paid (it was barely worth the little pay I got.)

2. Would doing this inspire you every day? I like getting the new ideas for artwork and figuring out the riddle of getting it done... so yeah, that's inspiring. Teaching would be pretty great with the right batch of kids or maybe the right school... but the way that the education system is going there are really no guarantees. The Military and Emergency Medicine pretty much sent me the other way... unless misanthropy can be inspired?

3. Does doing this come as naturally to you as breathing? I guess organizing ideas into images and structures is pretty natural to me... I had an idea for a new series of paintings tonight and immediately after the idea hit me I had picture layouts and compositions figured out. The words "I wonder what that would look like" seldom come out of my mouth because I've already imagined what it would look like. (I'm usually disappointed about the actors they chose for characters in books I've read).

4. Do you feel you’ve been given a special gift to do this? Like Olsher said... this is sometimes a hard thing to admit. When I was a Paramedic and sometimes as a Marine, people would say, "I could never do that"...sometimes they meant the academic side of learning medicine but mostly they meant the occasional blood, frequent exposure to bodily fluids, common invasive procedures, and constant jackasses. I would always tell them they could do it, because I've seen people do some amazing things under stress. It's desire that they didn't have. But I've known people who really wanted to do some of the things I have done with art and weren't able to. At every other job on the list there have been people were doing it better than I was...sometimes because of natural ability and sometimes because of desire...so yeah, while I know I'm no great artist, I do think that I've got a skill that some don't have.

5. Does time seem to fly by when you’re engaged in this activity? Art: yes. Marine: seldom. Paramedic: sometimes. Retail: only in comparison to scooping out my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon.

6. Can you possibly make money doing this? Art: Hopefully. Marine: yes but at physical cost. Paramedic: yes but at mental cost. Retail: yes but the cost would be ten years with a possible chance of parole in five.

There are plenty of things that I love and hate that I could expound upon in these lists... but in the interest of brevity... and the fact that Lyn keeps asking, "how's it going in there?"... I'll end it here. I'm happy with my primary job of taking care of Emmett (which covers the love and some of the hate questions) but I'm also very glad to be doing art regularly again and be in this project with my amazing wife.

PS - ...Was that good babe?

Finding Your Passion (not the dirty kind...this isn't that kind of blog)

We got back from Chicago late last night, and all I wanna say about it right now is that I fucking love my family. The best. Ever. I'll probably fill you in on the visit at some point, but not today.

Today, I want to write about this article, called "How to Identify the One Thing You Were Born To Do," which is a terrible title, but not necessarily a terrible thing to try to figure out . Ross showed it to me today, and it's been really interesting to talk to him about it. See, we're just about to do an actual launch of the business. I'm in the process of registering our business name, and we've got holds on a couple of website domains so that we can try to really make this happen. Is it jumping the gun? Maybe...but as Ross and I have worked on building this up (me doing the writing and the networking, and him doing the art and creating ideas), we've gotten more and more attached to making Paint By Number Parents work as a real business. He is loving painting every day, and I'm remembering that I've been a writer (though never really professionally) for a long time. Plus there are piles of other reasons we want to make this happen: we work well together; he's going to be a stay-at-home dad for a while still; we need some more income but we don't want E to be in full time childcare; with a new baby on the way at Kelle's house, Ross is going to have his hands full taking care of kiddos so school may take longer than expected. Plus the whole thing is fun, but I think I mentioned that already.

Anyways, Ross showed me this article today and it got us both thinking about how this project kind of actually fits who we are and what we love. Or, as Steve Olsher puts it, Paint By Number Parents just may be our "what." Figuring out your passion can apparently be done in three simple steps, which is awesome, and so I'm not only going to go through them myself, but I'm gonna make Ross do it on here too. It's about time his voice got added in as more than a critic of contemporary music.

We start, of course, with step 1: Answer the Question: What do you love?

Focus on the activities and interactions that lift your soul. Avoid listing skills you’re good at simply because you’ve practiced them over time. Now, dig even deeper. Remember a time years ago when you laughed hysterically? What triggered the laughter? And as an adult, what gives you goose bumps? Maybe it’s the moment when you come up with a really good idea and realize you’ve found the solution you’ve been looking for. Tie the goose bumps moment to descriptions that encapsulate the activity in noun or adjective form — such as singing, teaching or healing. When recalling a special moment, try not to be too literal; look for the subtext. For example, imagine you have a fond memory of an evening spent bowling with your grandmother. Instead of writing “bowling with Grammy” on your list, broaden it to “investing time with a beloved family member.”

This one is pretty easy, at least to start. I love teaching because I love explaining things...if you've ever hung out with me after I've had more than one glass of white wine, you know this. I just can't help myself - the words are out of my mouth before my brain has a chance to tell me that no one's interested in the love affairs of Louis XIV. I love writing, and telling stories. I love reading. So. Much. And cooking. I really like cooking, especially with Ross, making things with much too much butter. I love my family, and playing board games with them after dinner. I love wine - the flavors, the varieties, the fanciness, the opportunity to make fun of the fanciness. I love gossip, which means I love news, and politics and soap operas. I love cuddling, and capers (the sneaky kind, not the salty kind). I love terribly good music (If Neil Diamond and MC Hammer teamed up together to cover Debbie Gibson songs, I just might die in an explosion of glitter and snarky bliss.)

Next, step 2: Answer the Question: What do you loathe?

If you’re clear about which activities you despise, you can establish a strong foundation for moving your life forward by starting to let them go. Whatever it is that pushes your buttons (in a bad way), write them down. Even if you worry that others might see these things as petty, include them. The key is to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings. Now, reflect on why you deplore an activity. Tie these moments to descriptions that encapsulate the activity in noun or adjective form — for example, cleaning, watching TV, eating unhealthy food, being around miserable people, shopping.

Oooooh, fun game. Ok, I hate: people who are in the way (seriously, you don't have to stop your shopping cart in the middle of the aisle, make small talk with the clerk at the DMV, walk three people wide on the sidewalk, or drive slowly); defeatism; technology that doesn't work; being out of touch with the people I love; spiders; intolerance, or lack of compassion; when people say "nucular" instead of "nuclear"; Garrison Keillor's smug voice and the fact that he has a weekly program that people listen to; blaming the victim;  Men's Rights Activitsts; when people don't see their privilege; running (seriously, why would you make people do this?!); the NRA (and all other instances of promotion of violence as an answer to any problem, including other violence); actually, that last one should probably just say "violence of any kind" because I'm a big ol' hippie; not being taken seriously when I'm trying to be serious, or having my actions/complaints dismissed as unimportant, or not being able to do something about "it," whatever the "it" may be.

And finally, step 3: Discover the Seven Seeds of Your Soul

Get your lists of Things I Love Doing and Things I Hate Doing. Start with the top item on your list of Things I Love Doing and ask yourself each of the six questions below as it relates to the activity. Each answer should be a definitive yes or no.

1. Even if you didn’t get paid a cent for it, would you still do this?
2. Would doing this inspire you every day?
3. Does doing this come as naturally to you as breathing?
4. Do you feel you’ve been given a special gift to do this?
5. Does time seem to fly by when you’re engaged in this activity?
6. Can you possibly make money doing this?

Ok, so I can answer "Yes" to all these questions for: Teaching, writing, and cooking. Next!

When you arrive at an item with six yes answers, circle it and then ask yourself this final question: Does performing this activity involve anything on my list of Things I Hate Doing?

Hmmmm...actually, teaching may just be the only one of those things that doesn't fit...but I can't know for sure, because I've never tried to write or cook professionally, and if you don't know that doing something as a job is different than doing something for fun, you have never tried to follow your dreams. Also, I love teaching. And I teach at an amazing school, which in part means that I can do more than one thing, since teaching hours are so conducive to life outside of work, if you're doing it right! So with that, I'm gonna hand this off to Ross, who has just finished making me a dee-yicious salad for dinner. Next post will be from him!

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Today, I'm thankful for a grocery store that's nearby, for salad, for people who believe that "it takes a village to raise a child," for "Parks and Recreation," and for sake.

List #3: Things I want to do right now but can't

1. I'm dying to write about people in my life today. Just dying. I'm keeping a few awesome little secrets, some of which many people already know and a few that no one else knows, and none of which I'm allowed to put on the internet. And I'm going to confess something here: I love gossip. I love knowing things about people, about how people feel about each other, about little dramas, getting to tell people news they've never heard before...but it would be so unfair to write about those things, so I'll just keep them to myself and flaunt the fact that I know things, because I love my friends and family more than I love gossip. I think this whole thing started when I watched soap operas as a kid. Those were the best sick days - marathons of Days of Our Lives and All My Children, with so much intrigue and scheming and overdone romance.

2. I so want to go to Disneyland. It's holiday time there, which is always the best. The lights and the bells and the funny outfits everyone wears - they're so cheery, everything smells delicious, and the whole place has always felt magical to me. We took Emmett this summer and he loved it, which made me so happy, because I've loved Disneyland for ages. Kelle and I had annual passes when we were teenagers and used to spend most Tuesday afternoons there, searching for Hidden Mickeys and groups of tourists dressed identically. I'd like to go today, but of course it's really far away and this is a holiday weekend, so that's not gonna happen. And it's pricey! Just about $100 a ticket now - we did it once this year, but I don't know if we could justify spending that kind of money again - throw in parking and lunch, and it's nearly a $300 day, that for us ended at 1:00 because of naptime. Boo.

3. I want to wear my wedding rings. I love them and I hate not wearing them. This one isn't a "just today" kind of thing, but a most days thing. My fingers swell up because of my arthritis, so my rings only fit sometimes, and if I leave them on too long, my skin gets really irritated and I break out in a horrible rash because of the too-tight rings. I also want to get them sized, but I'm not sure that will help, because my Drs. don't know if the arthritis will stick around or not, so I may end up with too-big rings.

4. Swimming sounds like the best thing right now, but we don't have a pool, and we're not members anywhere. I suppose Emmett and I could try to sneak into a hotel pool somewhere in Emeryville, but that sounds risky. 

5. If I could upload pictures of the "Animal Alphabet" Ross designed, I would put it up on our Etsy shop right now and promote the shit out of it. These little paintings are so fricken cute. We're going to offer individual letters as paintings, and also custom made name deals - they'll be adorable, and hopefully a big hit. BUT! We still can't find the cord to the camera, and I think that although the iPhone pictures are ok, I should be learning how to use the Lumix. Especially if we're gonna be doing this for reals, which I so hope we are. I'm enjoying it, and I know Ross is too - he's told me several times he likes having painting "assignments" because it helps him focus his art. I feel the same way about writing - it's kind of torturous getting going sometimes, but once I do it, I'm so glad.

6. For probably 4 days now, I've wanted dim sum. Delicious little bites of pastry or rice paper filled with vegetables and spices and seasonings and man, they're so good. I especially want a chive pancake with peanut sauce. I've also been craving these vegetable kabobs from a Thai Lao restaurant in Berkeley called Dara. I lived around the corner from it for a year or so, and used to eat there all the time. These things are heavenly - Marinated broccoli, tofu, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots and onions all charred on a woodfire grill and served with cucumber and carrot salad and peanut sauce. My mouth is watering thinking about them.

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I'm sure there's more, but I can go binge on Parks and Rec right now because the kiddo is napping, and so I'm going to. Today, I'm thankful for: brand new sweatshirts that are still fuzzy and soft inside, bandannas, plants that are hard to kill, bubbly water and big heavy blankets

Butterfly Photography

I'm having the darndest time figuring out how to photograph the lovely paintings Ross has been doing over the last week. He's been experimenting a lot with color, pattern, and technique and has created some really beautiful stuff, but my photography skills are not up to par. I've taken the same series of each butterfly, and while some of them are close to good, none of them are excellent. Here's what I've got so far:  

I'm calling this one "Butterfly A" because I'm creative like that.

 Now we have Butterfly B, which is my personal favorite, even though (or maybe because!) Ross likes it least. I think it's perfect for my niece's room.

 Butterfly C:

And last but not least, Butterfly D. (Side Note: Blogger, why are you so crappy with formatting pictures? I would have loved to have each set laid out horizontally, but that's not even close to an option, and it messes up all my text! Argh).

So now the question is, do I put these up on the Etsy site? Or wait until I figure out my photography some more? I found our old Panasonic Lumix camera, which took some nice pictures, but what I didn't find was the cord that lets me download those pictures onto a computer. So for the time being, I'm using my iPhone, which isn't bad, but isn't great either. It did take this picture today, though, so that's not too shabby (if you like creepy clowns who hang out at playgrounds and check their email while riding unicycles)

Twitter Success!

Martha Plimpton replied to me on Twitter today, and Jenny Lawson, the Bloggess, who I love and have been reading for ages but who I never had the courage to actually try to talk to because she's so smart and funny and talks to Wil Wheaton (who I love even more maybe), started following me! I think I may die.

Pinterest Tutorial 1 (from someone who's very new at it)

So, I've been blogging and working with Ross on our new little business for almost 2 weeks now, and I've had a bazillion questions about all those kinds of things. And some of those questions had answers that were hard to find! So here is one of the things I've tried to figure out, along with the answer. I'll try to make this a semi-regular thing, as I figure out stuff that needs explaining.

How do I put a link to my Pinterest or twitter on my blogger or blogspot blog?

Ok, there are like 80,000 tutorials about how to do this, but none of them came with screenshots, and so I did the wrong thing about 30 times before I figured it out. So I'm gonna give this tutorial a shot, and see if I can make it make sense. Keep in mind, I wrote this so even my grandma could do with with minimal phone calls:

1 and 2. Go to Pinterest, and (1) click on the menu (upper left side, three horizontal lines, helpfully labeled with a 1 in the picture). Then (2) click on "Developers" down at the bottom (labeled 2!)

3. Click on "Pin It Button"

 

4. Click on "Widget Builder"

5.  Select "Follow Button"

6. In the "Pinterest User URL" window, replace the second "pinterest" (the one with the box around it) with your username. Do the same in the box underneath

7. Click "Build It"

8. A new little bit of HTML will appear. Select all of it with your mouse, then copy it by pressing "Ctrl" and "c" on your keyboard

 

9. Go to your blogger dashboard and click on "layout"

10. Click on "add a gadget." Pick whichever spot you want. I pointed out 2 of the options, but there are others.

11. Once you do that, a new window will pop open. Scroll down in that window until you see "HTML/Javascript." Click on that. (This was the part I had the toughest time figuring out. Don't click on that tempting "add your own" option at the top of the pop up window. It won't work. You'll get an error message that says "URL contains illegal characters," and no other explanation. Which is frustrating when you're new!)

12. In the "Title" box, type in "Follow Me on Pinterest!" or whatever else you want to call it. You can call it potato salad for all I care. But I think that might confuse people...

13. In the "Content" box, paste the code you copied from the Pinterest site (use "Ctrl" and "v" on your keyboard)

14. Click "Save"

And you're done! Check out your blog, and if you don't have a shiny new Pinterest widget on your blog, call someone who knows more about computers, cause I just gave you all I've got. This is how I did mine, after lots of trial and error. Hopefully you can follow me on Pinterest through the link. I've got my fingers crossed...if I did it right, I should be famous on Pinterest within weeks, right?

Pancakes and Butterflies

Pancakes are a weekend tradition around here. Actually, the two houses tend to battle over who makes the better pancakes (I should clarify - Ross battles...Tommy doesn't know it's a competition yet). And I'm just happy to get pancakes mostly!

Should we call it "Hole in the Fence," or "The Secret Garden"? 

 On Saturdays, we go through the secret door in our backyard and have breakfast at my sister's place. How cool is that? Our yards connect, which is possibly the neatest thing ever. Eventually I'll get to telling that story, of how we found our home, and then how she found hers. We have big plans for that yard, but for now, the fence just has a few missing boards, and with a quick climb through the ivy and over a garden-gone-wild, we can be in each other's yards.

 So, most Saturday mornings, that's just what my little family does. In our pajamas, we head through our little backyard portal and arrive at "Auntie's House," which usually already smells like pancakes and bacon. All 5 of us crowd into the little breakfast nook in her adorable, black-and-white tiled kitchen. Emmett sits on books, in between his "dahdee" and his "tahmee," and pretty gleefully eats his "pancheeks" with dip (which is what he calls ALL condiments...ketchup, mustard, sriracha, maple syrup, etc).

Boys side versus girls side

Tomorrow, Ross will make pancakes again, but it'll just be the three of us. Which is nice, but it's not this silly dream-come-true of a little family compound that we're living on Saturday mornings. Every once in a while, I try my hand at pancakes, but I almost always go for the Swedish version, like this one I pinned. Being 1/4 Swedish by marriage and family legend, I know a good Swedish pancake when I have one. If there's not a lot of butter and a little bit of sugar, they're not right. And this recipe has both.

Also, tomorrow, we're heading off to the art store to make some big purchases. Blick's having a big sale, and Ross needs new colors, and more paper, because dang, has that guy been working. We decided to launch this business 3 days ago, and he's already got one near-completed work and two more in progress. I've been sneaking around the house snapping pictures of his paintings, and I love being able to share the progression of his works. I think he was inspired by our niece, who has a butterfly bedroom. Thinking about what parents might want to decorate their kids' rooms with, and while reading the wonderful The Very Hungry Caterpillar to our kiddo, he was inspired to create this watercolor and colored pencil piece, which is now our first item for sale on our Etsy store! Click here to buy

A Beautiful Butterfly

So, we're starting a business. Which is exciting, but so intimidating! At the moment, the whole thing is just a bunch of paint, paper, and a pile of lists (the paint is Ross...the lists are mine), but I think just maybe by next year we might have something excellent!


Ross has been an artist most of his life, I think. For sure since I met him 13 years ago. He was the cutest thing...all tough and grown up and clean-cut, with his Marine Corps fatigues and his buzzed hair, but with this romantic side that drew me to him. He talked about painting and drawing and played Mazzy Star and called me exactly when he said he would. Being the starry-eyed 18 year old hippie I was, I bought into that romance almost instantly. I loved the idea of him before I knew the reality of him, and then I loved the reality even more. He was thoughtful, kind, protective...and I loved that he was an artist. I always wanted to be one...and every once in a while I made something pretty (I'm excellent at collaging!), but I've never been an artist like Ross is. It's in his soul...just the way he looks at the world (and at me - swoon!) is through artist's eyes.

But a few years ago, he kind of stopped creating...and was sad about it. I was too...I love his art. We were struggling with money, and he got one boring job at Borders, and then another at a hardware store, and then just after he was offered a management position at Borders (requiring him to quit the hardware store so he could be full time at the bookstore), Borders went out of business...which of course happened just a few months after I got pregnant with our first child. Faced with the choice between ridiculously expensive childcare or the loss of his income, we chose for Ross to stay home and be a full-time dad and part-time student. Our son, who was born in November 2011, is thriving! He's funny, polite and smart - he tells nonsense jokes and laughs at them, yells out "gonna gichoo" and then chases us around the house, and loves saying "nankyoo" and "y'elcome" after we read books to him.

Our finances, though, are not thriving...and neither is Ross's art. So...we're starting a business! Etsy and home decorations, here we come! Ross is painting watercolors of vegetables as we speak...and I'm making lists. Business plan, marketing, finances, etc. And we're both crossing our fingers. I think we can make something awesome happen, and I'm going to document it all. The painting process, the creation of our store, our (hopeful) entry into local farmer's markets and festivals, and the finger-crossing-hope-so-hard-it-happens realization of a dream we didn't realize we had. The creation of a business we can run from home, and the establishment of my wonderful husband's art career!