Mama's little helper...

Weekend:  WIN!!

This weekend was terrifically brilliant and awesome.  I spent most of Saturday working on the old dissertation.  I figured out kind of a tricky thing that IE had wanted me to do to add to the dissertation.  It was kind of annoying, but I figured it out, because that is just how I roll.  I ended up submitting a somewhat near to the last draft before going to committee draft to IE last night (this morning).  I am wiped out exhausted this morning, but I definitely feel good (adderall will do that for ya!).  Commence vacation till I get comments back (woooooooo hoooooooo!!) from IE.  The light at the end of the tunnel is now visible. 

I pulled two all-nighters last week, as such, this weekend was pretty subdued.  I was able to catch up on some stuff around the house (can't wait to post two new art projects that we completed.  Commence my sister stealing my ideas and doing them for herself.) 

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Sociology Dept's welcome back picnic out at Maclay Gardens.  Nico had a good time walking around getting into stuff.  Turns out the little man is crazy about swings.  I was swinging him in one of those high-backed baby swings and he had a look on his face that can only be described as PURE JOY.  Wishing I could have taken a picture of him...

Speaking of him... Nico now knows how to put away toys.  If you sit with him on the floor with a bin and tell him to put the toys away, he can pick up the toys and put them in a bin.  Isn't that great?  He also is starting to understand commands... like Sunday I was in the kitchen with him cutting out a pattern for shorts.  I had these little scraps of tracing paper that needed to go in the trash, so I called him over, handed him the scraps and told him to put them in the trash can, and pointed.  He did it.  Of course, he also got in the cabinets and pulled out pots and tried to put them in the garbage can too... so... there is that. 

Also, we went to IHOP on Sunday for some morning noms.  He apparently loves pancakes, because he was making like his Uncle Billy and ate him a ton of pancakes.... with strawberry sauce on them.  Then he looked at him and very distinctly said, "Mama."  I would love to call this his first word... but when I asked him to point to Mama, he pointed to himself.  So... maybe not quite yet?

I have decided to re-start my photoblog.  Don't be jealous.  In stead of posting a new original picture every day, I am committing to just post one picture every day.  And rather than it being pictures of my new pedicure, my latest culinary obsession or the like, I am trying to do some more artsty-photos, because let's be real here, I have, literally thousands of pictures on my hard drive.  And secondly, I take a mean picture... even with my crappy point and shoot camera.  And thirdly, I have discovered Picnik.com... Talk amongst yourselves.  Its pretty much like Picassa only, a cranked out on speed and beefed up on steroids version of Picassa. 
This newest venture was born out of my recent not too fiscally healthy obsession with Etsy.  I havent bought any prints yet (see previous statements on paying for things I feel like I could do myself), but I am currently obsessing with these BIRDS, these HOTAIR BALLOONS, and the Sacre Couer in Paris.  Here is the thing: these pictures aren't anything I can't do.  We have already establshed that I have a pretty good eye for composition.  Now it's just a matter of mastering the photoediting stuff... hence my discovery of Picnik.com.  Plus, now that I am not frantically trying to finish the dissertation during my lunch hour and breaks at work, etc.  I know have time to do other stuff... right?  This is how I am selling it to myself, anyways. 

In any case, my new photoblog web address is:  http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/jcbrphotog in case you wanted to see pretties...

All for now... hope you all have a fabulous week.