oh, jenny mae

i feel like a broken record

ohjennymae — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:24:00 +0000

but i’m so busy.

busy.

with little things.

teaching music 2 mornings a week at miss james’s preschool.

thinking about working 5 mornings a week teaching music elsewhere.

sewing

cleaning (well, making sure we aren’t total slobs, but i wouldn’t call it cleaning)

gardening (tomatoes and peaches soon!)

making sure my children don’t starve.

volunteering in school.

writing the elementary school pto newsletter.

the list goes on…

and it’s only going to get worse if i do take that job. at least i get to find a cleaning crew if i do go back to work. there’s also hope that the position can grow, but i’m not really counting on it yet.

blogging takes a backseat, along with picture taking. i tend to default to my iphone because it’s always with me, but i really do want to take more photos with my nikon.

and i want to sew more for myself. i made the wiksten dress, but have a ton of other things i’d like to make including a maxi dress, maxi skirt the binding on my first king-sized quilt and ukulele bag.

i just have to figure out where i can fit it all in. at night on the couch, like right now? the last thing i want to do is write. i want to veg out. watch tv, fart around.

i don’t know how other bloggers who sew a ton find the time to photograph and post their tutorials. and clean the house, and feed the children, and and and…

and nothing. i’m just busy. with little motivation to change what’s going on at present. someday, i hope to carry on here with more posts. until then, i’ll pop in when i can. i actually have something in the works for this week after i go get micro-derma-peela-brasion or whatever it’s called. and if i put that out there, i have to update you, right?

peace, dudes. until tomorrowish.

holy hell, he’s 6

ohjennymae — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:45:01 +0000

my boy is 6 today and it’s been a month since i’ve posted and it’s a saturday, so no one will see this and i’m busy and i’m lazy and and and

i have few words for how blown away i am by my little bug this last year. i’ve had few words here lately.

i find myself busy and with little time to write, much less get the things done at home that i want to do.

but i do have time to love on my babies and revel in their glories.

his are varied and great.

he’s reading at a 4th grade level.

he’s unafraid.

he’s particularly clever about words and language, coming up with a metaphor project wherein he makes a cd of songs with metaphors (THAT HE FINDS. ON HIS OWN.) blows me away. (i can’t help but brag. this blows me away in a kindergartener. i’ll write more later as there are added pieces too this project that will happen in may.)

he bursts with self confidence, wearing uggs with aplomb, shrugging off nay-sayers when they say only girls wear the fuzzy, stinky, toasty boots.

he continues to love building with legos and coming up with his own designs and games.

he is so sugar-sweet.

he’s sensitive as a splinter of glass in your foot.

he trusts in everyone, so wholly, that he sometimes gets stung.

he can make friends anywhere, with anyone.

his joy is contagious.

he can goof around with the best of them.

he loves his sisters so much.

(and their words about how awesome he is:)

-he did the litterbox this morning without anyone asking him to. on his birthday. ~jilly (litterbox isn’t his job and when he did it, he told me he took a risk in trying it even though it’s not his job and no one even told him how. my heart burst.)

-he’s smart for a kindergartener. he’s creative. ~scout

-he’s poetic. ~jilly

-i love that he plays a game with me every day. that’s cool.” ~miss james

most of all, i’m still so struck by his ability to love so fully that he still glows when i walk in the room. he risks getting chastised by the teacher when he sees me, just to sneak a hug, or a touch, or a full-mouth kiss. he runs across the playground, dropping whatever he’s doing, just to snag some more mama time. his classmates feed off of that and give me love, too. they share hugs and glances when they see me outside of class. his joy exudes from his pores and they love to see it from him. they point me out to him because they know how much there is there between us. he’s that spectacular.

when asked what he thought were the best things about him, he said:

“that i’m 6. my name. that i have lots of legos. that i love my mommy and daddy. that i love my life.”

i love his life, too. been glad to have him for 6 years now & hope i get 106 more.

happy birthday, mr. bug.

sew & tell: the wiksten dress

ohjennymae — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:39:18 +0000

so amy inspired me to start and more importantly finish the wiksten dress i bought a few weeks ago.

i’ve seen a lot of people make these in the last month or so & it is a fantastic pattern.

i cut into some of my vintage fabric on monday. i wanted to start with something i loved, but didn’t spend more than a couple of bucks on for my first go-around.

by wednesday, i was here:

and just in time to wear it for preschool drop off this morning:

purple boots chosen by miss james.

you can see that i changed my mind about how i was going to make it on wednesday. i originally cut the top as long as the pattern & added the orange print to lengthen it. while i really like that length, i didn’t like how the piecing was at my hips. i got out my trusty seam ripper & moved the skirt up to the waist. i like a belted dress, so i slapped on a mustard woven belt from anthro.

i love this pattern & will be making more as shirts and more dresses. i’ve never done french seams before & they are superb. i’ve heard of some neck-gaping & it does gape just a bit in the back.

nothing i can’t fix if i decide to do it. i also had no fun with the curved hem. i should look up how to fix that.

until then, link up here for sew & tell friday. thanks, amy!

where’s waldo?

ohjennymae — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:30:11 +0000

my ragnar del sol 2012 experience has now been over for 24 hours, and it was an adventure, yet again, with unforeseeable twists and turns. my shoulders are sunburned, my abs ache, my quads are killing me, but i’m still looking forward to my next ragnar relay. and i don’t want to wait another year!

if you aren’t familiar with ragnar, it’s an overnight relay with 12 people to a team, split between 2 vans. we started an hour and a half northwest of phoenix, leapfrogged each other around the north side of the valley and ended up 200.5 miles later in tempe. every member runs 3 legs, and we get e little bit of rest in between.

i was supposed to run 6.7 miles, 6.7 miles and 4.8 miles.

BUT (there’s always a but)

we got a text at 4:40 am friday morning that one of our runners wasn’t coming. (cue the googly eyes)

and i couldn’t find one of the costumes, so my van had to come and pick me up. good thing, too, since i found the costume in my clean laundry pile (don’t ask, i don’t know the answer.)

at least i didn’t have strep throat, right? that was not fun.

we headed out to wickenburg for the start and, just like last year, i didn’t know anyone in my van. by the end of the race, that never matters, though. we bonded over the race and the fact that we had to figure out how to split up all those extra miles. and fretting over whether or not gordy would make it to his friend’s wedding at 10am on saturday. he was runner 1 and hoped to be done in time to have a buddy pick him up and take him to the hitchin’.

my first leg was 6.7 miles and i ended up running in the middle of the day. it was 80º and H.O.T. HOT. i usually run a 9:30 mile, but had to walk a lot so i wouldn’t overheat. i could feel my body starting to shut down and know i would have, if i hadn’t listened and taken it easy. a couple of other teams stopped and poured water on me, which was a huge help and my van stopped twice for me. i felt bad about slowing the team down, but knew they would rather have a slow teammate than another 3 legs to split between them because i dropped out.

an hour and 12 minutes after i headed out, i tagged aaron in for the first one we were splitting from our delinquent runner. halfway in, he said he needed relief. scott came in and finished the last 2 miles. aaron stopping at 2 miles was testament to just how hot it was out there. he ran 9 miles on saturday morning and said the 2 miles in the heat was worse.

(both vans, at the first exchange. missing scott, who was running)

after some food, that i forced myself to eat, we ended up at the next van exchange. van 2 was running & we just had to wait for them. it was loud at the exchange and there was music. through the beauty of social media, i asked ragnar when it was shutting down and they were kind enough to do just that about 7pm. i caught about an hour of sleep before we started hearing that van 2 was getting closer.

we started back out at about 10:30pm and i slept a bit more, hydrated, and ate enough that i wouldn’t fall over. my second leg was also 6.7 miles, but i was running at 3am. the lack of sun was glorious. i was pumped to make up some time, but remembered i had a 6 mile uphill climb. add to that a heavy headwind, and my time was exactly the same as it was for my earlier run/walk. i didn’t, however have to walk at all, so that was good. i felt better about it and didn’t feel my body shutting down at all. this leg happened to be a no van support leg, which meant that my team couldn’t stop and give me water or make sure i was ok. i had my phone on me, though, so i sent them a few texts to let them know i was feeling good.

i had about 40 minutes to rest this time, instead of 6 hours, since i was going to pick up a couple of miles from the drop out. i still felt good and this last leg was flat, so i booked it in at 8 minute miles. my van wasn’t even there yet, since they never expected me to run that fast. frankly, i didn’t either, but i was pumped and feeling it.

we drove to the next van exchange, all took naps, gordy ran his last 2 miles, we got him to a drop off spot, looking like waldo and he made it to the wedding on time.

my last run was 4.8 miles, northeast of the valley. i was the bringing us back down south. it was hot again, i had hills to climb, i had no van support, and no water station. was i elated to see a table with the ragnar symbol halfway in. a surprise water station is a beautiful thing, but not as beautiful as this:

(a thing of beauty)

when you see that sign on any leg it’s a great feeling. when you see it after running 19.5 miles in under 24 hours, it feels amazing.

i hustled in to hand off to aaron’s girlfriend, who came in to save the day and run our last missing-runner leg. not having to split up that last 6 miles was a game-changer for us. there’s no way we could have done it without her.

after her run, we dropped her off at her car & headed to in-n-out burger to scarf down some calories. i’d burned through over a days worth and hadn’t eaten enough to keep me moving. we cleaned out the van, headed to the finish line & ran in the last few hundred yards with andi. gordy even came back between the wedding and reception to finish with us!

(full team)

i had a blast, i can’t believe it’s over, and i wish i could run the socal race in april. if i could only run one race a year, this would be it. hands down. ragnar is a very well put together race and is a ton of fun.

10 x 2

ohjennymae — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:37:10 +0000

today my girls turn 10.

my lady-babies are growing up and with each year i see the natural pull away from me and into who they will become. i can’t wait to see where they go and what they’ll accomplish. there’s still so much more to see.

10 years ago, i was nervous only when we walked out of our apartment and our upstairs neighbor, pierce, peeked out to tell us good luck. it made it real, somehow in a way that i hadn’t thought of before. i miss pierce. he was a good one.

10 years ago, i was walking into the hospital on 38th street in austin, wondering just who it was i made. there was so much i didn’t know. i thought they were fraternal since the perinatal ultrasound tech told me so, which made me think i was having a boy and a girl. i thought jilly was a boy because she was the big one. i was right about my wee little scout. he was wrong, even though we didn’t find out for 9.5 years.

10 years ago, we had a stack of CDs 1 foot high with a little stereo we borrowed from our neighbor in the compound. remember those? CDs? we had so many because we expected to be there for 24 hours or more. we wanted to be prepared and didn’t know if i’d be in a radiohead mood or an indigo girls mood. radiohead won out, and i only listened to the entirety of “the bends” before i was wheeled away to have babies.

10 years ago, tommy lee jones’s doppleganger gave me my first epidural. he was quiet and professional, with black eyes and wrinkles in all the right places. after we were serenaded by scout, i noticed my ob asking someone to wait a minute to be sure the 2nd baby was safely on her way. i turned to see him waiting in the doorway. i took it all in and watched as much as i could, because there really isn’t a lot to do in the 19 minutes before the next baby comes.

10 years ago, my mom and sister walked up to the nursery window from the airport just as scout was coming in and they knew she was ours. when ben walked in with jilly just a bit later, they were as amazed as we were.

10 years ago, i made 2 girls.

10 years, i’ve been at the gig and i find myself loving it as much now as i did then. i may sometimes be short on words, but long on love for these beauties. these girls who made me as much as i made them.

on my girls being objects

ohjennymae — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:40:58 +0000

alice bradley of finslippy wrote a post* yesterday (that is still getting numerous comments) about a sliver of what it’s like to be a girl/woman/female. while i can certainly see where she’s coming from, because i’ve been the object of someone’s unwanted affection, i now have the glorious pleasure of watching it happen to my daughters: age 9.

do you work at subway? ’cause you just gave me a footlong.

i choke my chicken.

these are not things my girls should have to think about at 9. not things i should have to explain. i can’t remember when i first heard euphemisms for erections and masturbation, but i’m sure it wasn’t in the 4th grade! and while i was sexually harassed in 4th grade by having a couple of boys push me over to see my underpants, i didn’t know it was sexual harassment until i was an adult. i didn’t understand the depth of the way those boys treated me until i was much older. and the way those 4th grade boys treated me was much more innocent (although a definite precursor to more damaging behaviors) than what my girls are currently unknowingly enduring.

but it hurts more now.

to watch from the sidelines & hear about it from their lips makes my stomach sick and my heart go numb.

i want to follow the 7th grade punk home an give him what-for.

i want to scream at him at school, in front of his peers.

i want to make him feel as small as a flea, so that he might get even a small taste of what it’s like to be a girl.

and while i know he’ll never know what it’s like to be a girl, i also want to teach him how not to turn into a lecherous man who says inappropriate things to girls and women. i want him to know that he can’t talk to females this way. for if we don’t let him know all of this now, then what does that tell him? that’s it’s okay! he can walk all over any woman he chooses and can treat her like a dog or an object.

but before that, i want him punished. i want him afraid of ever doing this again. i want him to understand the fear women and girls feel when they are treated this way.

nut then i have to wonder if i do all of that, would he react with retaliation? and why do i have to worry about the consequences of his punishment? why is the victim the one who has to worry so damn much?

would police involvement deter him? ’cause the shit he’s saying and doing (and there’s more) is not as small as him. it’s huge. it’s big enough that if it’s not handled well, there will be problems.

i know i’m strong enough to handle unwanted advances and have done what i needed to do, but i’ll always be scared that they aren’t equipped with the tools to take care of themselves. i mean, they’re 9. i shouldn’t be worried about this at 9, right? regardless, my heart will follow them around and urge them to stand tall, scream loudly and violently that the are not objects, but secure and beautiful girls who deserve better than what is happening to them and happens all the time to women everywhere.

we are all deserving of this most simple of things: respect.

*there’s more to the post than just how women are treated as objects, but this is the point that strikes me the most today, since we are currently dealing with this exact issue in our house.

my little holly go-lightly

ohjennymae — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:00:02 +0000

every kid has their own way with words & miss james is no exception. she misinterprets a ton of what we say, and we don’t correct her. she’ll figure it out soon enough, and while i’ll still love her to bits, the words just won’t be as cute. a couple of current gems include:

washingtoned c.
i have a goodea!

she also has a funny way if using ‘go’ as a prefix in words where it doesn’t belong. it’s quite hilarious to have her sound out each syllable correctly & then try to whole word, where she’ll add the ‘go’ again.

gogina
gortillas
gonilla
gonana
golami
gornado
gonoculars
goprise
gohna mahna

can you guess any of these gems?

jolly holiday!

ohjennymae — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:59:20 +0000

i hope everyone had a fabulous christmahanukwanzaakah & happy new year. i wanted to share our holiday card because i thought it was quite clever. (brushes shoulders off.)

i won a giveaway from kate at peepthread and got a custom printed card from little and the girl’s etsy shop. we love it. i hope you get a kick out of it, too.

lots of love for a fantastic 2012.

love, me & the fam.

dance with me

ohjennymae — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 07:32:06 +0000

my baby girl just crawled into bed with me, as she does every night.

sometimes she’s stealthy.
sometimes she’s sad.
sometimes she’s downright mad at the world.

but tonight was different. she curled in to me with her nose crinkled up and giggled, like we shared some silly, sleepy secret.

and i suppose we do in this nighttime dance. she punches my card and i step in with her, always.

my dance partner.

my doll.

someday soon, she’ll stay in her room one night and won’t come back. as much as i lament sharing my space, i’ll miss this dance we’ve perfected.

i’ll miss her body fitting just so between my chin and thigh.

i’ll miss falling back asleep in her hair.

i’ll miss her tiny toes and crinkled-up nose.

but i’ll always find her in the morning.

new music monday – christmahanukwanzaakah style

ohjennymae — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:59:49 +0000

i joined neil’s online christmahanukwanzaakah concert yet again. i hope to get a chance to check everyone out tomorrow. i wrote a song called, “we like to celebrate chrahhukah” for the occasion and had a little help.

i hope you like it & get a chance to see everyone else!