:: :: shopgood :: ::

i've been meaning to make these for awhile now. yesterday, in order to distract myself from the bad bad bad news about the house, i finally sat down and did it.

we've used a version of this for years and it's awesome. all week we just write things on the list as we run out and then on sunday we plan the next week's meals, finish the list, and take it all to the store.

just $7 for a printable version. download it once and it's yours to print forever.

:: :: no good very bad :: ::

i've been waiting to update on the house stuff because i didn't really have anything new to say. we're still waiting on the ohio closing. still pushing forward with the house here.

but today we found out that our sellers here put the house back on the market (without telling us) last week and got a new offer over the weekend. if we don't remove our transfer-of-title contingency (i.e. our sale-in-ohio contingency) then we're going to lose the house.

i am so mad. i mean, i'm disappointed and all, but mostly i'm mad. we've got our mortgage all ready to go. we offered their asking price. they own the house outright so it's barely costing them anything. and no one is saying that ohio won't close. it's just taking a while. so why screw us?

boo.

i know. i know. it's business. sucky business.

:: :: the next barrel :: ::

everything i know about safe locks and locks being picked and all that stuff i learned from the movies.

that being said, this week i realized that evan's little baby brain is like a safe lock. and inside that little baby brain of his there is a small little safe cracker just fiddling away (listening to his brain with a stethoscope if the movies are even remotely accurate).

and this week -- on monday, to be specific -- the little brain-safe-cracker in there got the next barrel to fall into place.

evan's language drastically improved this week. he is trying more words and his articulation and pronunciation have shown marked improvement. he is listening better, and by listening better i mean that he is responding better. he is more aware of boundaries i am setting. yesterday, as we sat near a pond having a snack during a family hike, i drew a line in the dirt and told him not to cross it and he actually tried so hard not to cross it even though he love love loves the water.

if i count to three the way mommies count to three (evan, you need to come inside. i'm going to count to three) he responds.

it seriously all happened this week.

and to top it all off, when i asked evan this week if he is still a baby he said no. he always says yes.

holy crap. way to go safe-cracker!

:: :: dear cats :: ::

when my sweet son, who is only 21 months old, mind you, decides to do something nice for you, and goes about it in the sweetest 21-month-old manner, play along, eh? when he decides that you deserve a snack (i.e. a cat treat), and he gets two out and pinches each between his thumb and forefinger, so gently, and then comes to find you and pets you so nicely that you don't run away and then tries to put the treat in your mouth, just eat the treat, okay? don't sniff it and then walk away. eat the treat.

seriously.

because he's just going to keep trying. and he's not even chasing you or being loud or doing any of the things you hate. he's trying to give you a friggin' CAT TREAT.

signed,
your owner

:: :: present participle :: ::

missing: the sun.

reading: balzac and the little chinese seamstress and the nest: home design.

trying: to stay hopeful about the new house because it could still happen.

craving: fabric.

thinking: about friendship.

listening: to the sounds of evan sucking his fingers during his nap.

amazed: by how much my life has changed in the last year, and by how much happier i am now than i was then.

putting off: making returns.

googling: picture frames.

wishing: for more wishes.

:: :: pretty pennies :: ::

you know those things we all talk about doing -- sometimes for years -- but never do? well i've been talking for awhile about starting a design blog and i decided that today, my thirtieth birthday, was the day to launch.

i recently abandoned my dissertation. i was (technically still am) a ph.d. student in english. back when i started working on my dissertation (on the concept of place-as-character -- an interesting topic as dissertation topics go, i suppose) i had this little story in my head about how i would finish my draft by such-and-such date and defend in march of this year and graduate winter quarter which would have me walking at a mid-march commencement. and then i would go on a vacation. and then i would turn 30.

it seemed like a perfect little story.

so in honor of my poor dissertation, sitting down in the basement with two boxes of research materials, and in honor of my lost vacation, i decided to do something new. to take one step further towards living a different life. a life that feels better. that is better for me.

each penny pretty is that step. it's a design blog dedicated to sharing ways to infuse your life with beauty, color, and creativity. it parts ways with other design blogs in its staunch refusal to concede that living a beautiful life means spending a fortune.

as a gift to me today, please go check it out. i have four posts scheduled for throughout today (although usually i'll be posting once or twice daily, monday through friday).

:: :: thirty things :: ::

things you should know about me:

i am a birthday lover.
i am recovering (recovered?) from postpartum depression.
i didn't realize it but i think my ppd started to descend like a thick charcoal fog on my birthday last year. or at least, i think that a series of unfortunate events that ended up being really traumatic for me started last year on the very day i turned 29.

that's when i got sick. a cold, sure, but one of those really bad up-all-night sick-for-four-solid-weeks colds. an evil cold that reduced me to tears. a cold that made me wonder how i could possibly care for evan while feeling like i might actually keel over and die. i felt wicked. vile. i felt possessed. i spent more than 20 consecutive nights on the couch coughing.

if i had yet recovered the posts from march and april of last year, i'd link to at least a handful of posts bemoaning my illness. it just wouldn't go away.

and this year i've been dreading my birthday not because i'm turning thirty (i'm actually quite psyched about my thirties) and not because i'm aging or whatever but because i just can't seem to detatch dates from experiences. last year's march 24th (and may 31st, and june 5th, and july 4th) reaches invisible silk threads into the future and wraps slender tentacles around its 2009 counterpart. i can feel the threads around me like a tunnel and even though i know that the beginning and the end of that tunnel are not one and the same time and place, i fear them both anyhow.

all of this is to say that for my birthday this year, i am being extra nice to myself. taking extra good care of myself. i revisited my feelgood list last night and added a few items, moved some things around, and have presented myself with the gift of time enough to cross everything off this week. instead of ten supernice things for myself (the last category on the feelgood list is a ten-a-la-carte category) i am going to try to do thirty supernice things for myself this week.

because i deserve it and because 2009 is not the new 2008. it's just 2009.

:: :: wow :: ::

i am a very lucky girl.

my husband, mom, and sister threw me a surprise 30th birthday party. and my family from connecticut came and my husband's sister was already here with her twin girls. both my parents were there.

it was really great.

i think my favorite part was the streamer game. there were four kids under 3 here, evan being the youngest, and someone had decorated a hallway doorframe with crepe paper streamers (think hippie doorway beads). well, it wasn't long before the kiddos were taking turns running through the streamers like football players through a row of cheerleaders. they'd queue up in my mom's bedroom and then come sprinting down the hallway and burst through the crepe paper, often with a hop or some other flourish.

but the best best part was that it somehow turned into a hugging game: i sat at the end of the runway and the kids would run through and throw themselves at me to give me birthday hugs. i must have gotten 50 toddler hugs, which we all know are as precious as unicorn dust and sometimes as rare.

(p.s. i highly recommend the streamer game if you've got some toddlers to entertain for a few hours. damn they think it's funny.)

:: :: wishes :: ::

i wish that someone had told me that becoming pregnant would forever alter the concentration and composition of hormones coursing through my body. i don't think it would have stopped me, but i would have liked to have known.

i also wish that someone would have told me that my son's adorable chubby baby feet would turn into just plain old regular feet.

wait. no. telling me that would have been just plain mean. i guess maybe there are some things too upsetting for us to know in advance.

:: :: mad lib mother's day :: ::

i can't decide if i would fill it out or give it as is. : )

:: :: three fragments :: ::

o n e

the first day warm enough that a steady breeze feels wonderful instead of chilling: makes me feel like anything is possible.

t w o

not wearing green today. when you have skin like skim milk, strawberry blonde hair and freckles, and a name like julie o'leary green, do you even need to wear it?

t h r e e

turning 30 next tuesday. looking for ways to celebrate. one of those ways is by launching a new design blog. it'll feature affordable stuff i love. cool projects. nifty stuff. i'm running free ads for the first month so please let me know if you have an event or shop you'd like to promote.

:: :: on proximity & ecology :: ::

my mom and i have always been close. whenever i've been away we've talked most every day. and living here has worked out surprisingly well. but one thing i'm finding more difficult is blogging. my mom reads the blog -- she always has -- but something about being here and writing about my life... it seems like suddenly i am writing to an audience of one. what will she think about what i write? how will she see it differently? what will she say to me?

just writing this blog post is making me tense. will i upset her? will it make her act any differently? even though i think of it as being about me, how is it also about her?

how odd that simple proximity really can change a situation. how strange that i feel nervous about what i write now. it's not true, but it somehow feels true that every aspect of my self, my being, my existence, is now (so much differently than before) tied up with my mother's self, her being, her existence.

our days interact. our moods intermingle.

in a very real way it feels like we're doing an intricate dance. a dance of symbiosis. it truly feels ecological: like suddenly our relationship is not a relationship but a system. it's not just about our individual persons but about our space -- about the space around us, the space we share, the spaces we keep separate. it's a system that requires extra care and attention -- one that requires balance. effort, sometimes.

it's a balancing act that we simultaneously know and remember from a long life lived together and are continually relearning.

i wonder what each of us will take from this when the time comes that we again live in separate houses. i wonder in what ways i will be changed. in what ways she will be changed. i wonder whether it has made our relationship stronger or whether it has introduced new cracks into the foundation.

i like to think that even the small moments of friction that occur now -- friction that comes from any two lives being rubbed up against each other -- are teaching us to love one another more. to accept one another's quirks.

or maybe these moments are teaching us about independence.

:: :: it's only rain :: ::

now available in the shop. i have a related-but-not-the-same piece of printable wall art going up as soon as i get a frame to photograph it in. i also just listed a silly little printable april fool's day card.

enjoy. and happy saturday. and go post a response to yesterday's post, please.

:: :: nice things :: ::

My Small Heart on a Sleeve (literally) III, originally uploaded by Atomic Citrocity.

so, this image isn't entirely related to this post, but i found it on flickr and loved it so much i thought i'd make the stretch.

today i have a question for you:

if your significant other, spouse, children, mom, etc. wanted to do something nice for you -- do not buy -- what would you want? would they cook for you? leave you alone? take you someplace?

:: :: genius :: ::

today i fancy myself a genius. no, really.

i was feeling like i was in a jeans rut. i wore jeans every day. but my khakis and chinos and whatever, back from the teaching days, felt far too formal for everyday-on-the-floor-with-evan wear. they weren't formal formal, but they felt it to me.

so here's where i become a genius. i bought new ones. just as formalish as the others (see above -- those are the ones i bought). only i bought them a size too big.

i know, i know. tim gunn wouldn't like it. stacy and clinton would scold me. but they are now my most favorite pants and i don't mind wearing them all the time even when i am playing with evan. they feel casual instead of "dressed up."

and they are so comfy.

yes. i'm definitely a genius.

:: :: further :: ::

usually a total optimist, i have to admit i'm not feeling optimistic about this room becoming my living room. with each day that passes the news on our condo back in ohio grows more grim. this house seems further and further away.

at first it was just that the buyer got something in late. then it was that the lender was slow. but today we found out that the lender will not close until repairs are made to the condo's roof, only repairing the roof is (a) not our responsibility and therefore (b) not within our control.

not being responsible for the roof is supposed to be one of the perks of condo ownership. suddenly, it's become this horrible, terrible thing. it's most likely going to make us lose this house (and the money we've spent on inspections, appraisals, radon tests, and our mortgage application).

late last fall we had a series of big storms in columbus that wreaked total havoc on everything and everyone. my realtor says there's a billion dollars worth of roof repair to be done in the greater columbus area. when our particular roof gets done is anybody's guess. god this sucks.

sucks sucks sucks.

:: :: identity, no crisis :: ::

if for nothing else (and i'm not saying that's true, but just if), motherhood is so good for learning things about yourself. i've spent the last twelve years thinking there was something wrong with me for worrying so often and so fiercely about my identity. i've agonized over so many things relating to "who i am" and "how i see myself" and "what i aspire to be like."

and i've always sort of thought that agonizing was (a) extremely self-centered (which yeah, it is) and (b) really petty and pointless. i've always thought that i must not have anything else going on in my life to be so obsessed with my own identity.

(an interesting and potentially related side note: since early childhood (and still today) i have always been easily preoccupied by and interested in my own image in a mirror (or any reflective surface, for that matter) so much so at times that i'll miss what someone was saying to me because i am watching myself.)

watching evan, though, and learning about childhood development and about the "terrible twos" (yeah -- they start some time before two, folks. sorry to disappoint you if you didn't know that already) has given me new perspective on my own interest in identity.

identity's not some petty thing, after all. needing to know and be secure in "who you are" isn't some maudlin, moody teenager thing. it's an everybody thing. in a lot of ways, it's the only thing evan's doing right now at 20 months: he knows how to control his body now (cups, spoons, steps, they're child's play), and he's learning to communicate, but from where i'm standing it looks like he's busiest figuring out who he is, asserting his independence from me, figuring out his boundaries, deciding when he needs others and when he doesn't, choosing which sneakers he wants to wear and which pants he likes and doesn't like. learning about what is and is not funny -- to him and to others.

"but you're turning thirty!" you might be thinking. "you should have figured all this stuff out by now." that's what i've been telling myself since i was 18. only, in those last twelve years i have encountered nothing but change: change that has put me in different environments, different situations, different positions of authority.

since i was 18 i've attended four universities and lived in five states (one of them three different times in those years). i have had 15 different addresses. i've been a freshman and a transfer student; an IT consultant and a graduate student; a teacher and a girlfriend and a wife and a mom. i've been a ph.d. student and then a ph.d. dropout. i've suffered postpartum depression.

the only constant in my life other than my name (oh! wait! that changed, too!) has been change. change every year, sometimes every two when i've been lucky. it's no wonder that i've struggled so with questions about who i am, what i like, how i want to live my life. identity's an important thing and mine's been too plastic.

and yet at the same time, it's been reassuringly firm. it's like there's a deep core within me that never changes and that holds me steady when i start careening wildly through my life. it's the part of me that feels most at home in navy blue and that hates wearing sneakers. the part of me that thinks lyrics are more important than music but that few songs are good enough lyrics-wise to make up for bad music. the part of me that wants to be noticed, but for my merits and strengths and nothing else.

the part of me that watches my reflection in shop windows to the point of tripping on sidewalk cracks.

the part of me that likes to know the answer to the "who am i" question.

:: :: juggle :: ::

friday afternoon i sent a message to twitter about having too many browser windows open in my brain. that's how i felt all weekend. i'm hoping to reboot today and get things back in optimum working order and be back fresh as a daffodil tomorrow. sound good?

see ya then.

:: ?!?!?!?!?!?! ::

what i would really like to do tonight is give you an update on the house situation. you know, tell you that we closed last week on the columbus condo and are already planning our move here in rochester.

i would like that more than i'd like a cookie.

even a chocolate chip cookie straight from the oven.

i would like that more than i would like to have a thick chocolate milkshake just one more time in my life (i am lactose intolerant... the options available to me as chocolate milkshake substitutes are sad, sad substitutions).

i would like it more than i would like an extra hour in my day.

i would like it more than i like mustard.

wait. i hate mustard. so that's an easy one.

trouble is, i can't give you an update on the house situation because we have not yet closed on our condo in columbus because our buyer's lender isn't ready yet or some rot and because of this we're in total "please be kind to us and don't back out of our no-longer-good contract" land with our sellers here who included a clause in the contract we used to be in with them about transferring title in ohio by march 1st.

which was days ago.

so we're totally at their mercy. and in the dark still about when we'll finally be out of ohio for good. this sucks.

it sucks so much i can't even come up with a good metaphor to describe how much it sucks. except maybe to say that it sucks more than trying to read a rhyming children's book whose meter is way off so that you're constantly trying to figure out how to read each line and how to get the rhyme to sing properly.

it sucks way more than that.

:: :: new favorite :: ::

i know, i know. i say this every time. but every time it's true. this is my new favorite item in the shop, released just in time for spring.

*snort*

yeah right. spring.

anyway, these beauties are real hold-in-your-hand cards, sold in a set of ten with coordinating chocolate envelopes. i have one sitting on my nightstand right now and it's been making me happy for days.

:: :: send me :: ::

for an upcoming project (called my life under an even more severe budget than i was living under before), i'm looking for anything you can think of that is:

(a) inexpensive and/or d.i.y.
(b) practical (i.e. it serves a legitimate daily purpose)

and

(c) pretty/well designed

if all goes according to plan, we're going to moving into a house that needs some, uh, aesthetic updating but we're going to be updating it on less than a dime. for that matter, we haven't had the money to buy new clothes for either of us grownups and evan's running out of shirts that extend at least most of the way to his wrists. so i'm looking for creative ways to get us through the meager years without feeling totally depressed about it.

send me your ideas for inexpensive art, clothing, drapes, kitchen tables, refrigerators (?!), and gifts. send me everything you can think of. then go search the internet and send me some more. send me things from your shop if you have one, or from your friend's shop.

please don't send me things from my own shop. i know what's in there already.

:: :: hatchery :: ::

i never would have thought to take evan to the fish hatchery in winter, but when my mom suggested it and evan immediately commenced making fish lips (oh. my. god. cute. cute. cute.) i decided it might be fun.

as you can see, evan loved it. my favorite part was the duck prints in the snow. i'd never seen those before.

(and how's this for funny / horrible: after the fish hatchery, we got home to brian making fish sticks for dinner. my hand to god. and evan made more fish lips as he dipped his sticks in ketchup and chowed down (nom nom nom). i give him a year or two before that incites refusals to eat and teary why-mommies.)

:: :: theory :: ::

so, all the snow around these parts? i've figured out where it comes from. the cold air here sucks every last drop of moisture from our bodies and then turns it into snow.

and now that i've written that it seems really gross. huh.

all i know is, i should have bought stock in johnson & johnson's lotion before we moved back.

:: :: welcome to march :: ::

happy first! here's hoping that march holds lots of green -- popping through the dirt, peeping out from beneath the snow, pricking the ends of each branch and bough with the promise of new leaves.