just a suggestion

Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.

--Oren Arnold

"when i am thirsty, you are the fountain"

i think i might be coming out of my funk/depression and perhaps i have noted that it might have been/be hormonally related. i say this because for about 2-3 months i've felt really low, have had intense hypoglycemic reactions, my hair has been falling out more than what i would consider typical or seasonal, and i've had some acne. i've never had acne in my entire life and yet for 2 months now i've had a crop of blemishes across my chin that come and go with some regularity. my hair fell out so frequently that we had to call in a plumber to snake our bathtub last week! it wasn't that noticeable because i was taking showers and our drain is open so you don't see an accumulation around the holes, but i've taken a few baths lately and felt oddly freaked out by the number of hairs i've seen floating around. (awesome vision, eh?) so i've been sort of linking the situation of my depression with the possibility of something physical actually going on (versus, MY EMOTIONS HAVE GONE ROGUE!) and i now feel there is a relationship. as im starting to feel better i've noted less hypoglycemia (whereas when i felt most depressed i was having episodes several times per day, now it's almost always fended off before they happen), my blemishes are fading, and well the hair thing is hard to really quantify but i feel optimistic. now granted i could genuinely be better at controlling my diet and anticipating my hypoglycemic reactions, regulating that has helped my skin AND! my skin has been giving me the finger since i wore full face make up at Por Vida on halloween so it could be related that that, and well i dont know about my hair falling out. oh well. the point is i'm feeling a bit better.

yesterday was a hard day in the sigler house. lots of grumpy children (and adults) so after a tense dinner david was like "jenny, let's open christmas presents!" and i was all \o/. last year, after all of the hullabaloo of the holidays we reflected that we had dropped the ball on communicating the true spirit of christmas to our kids. we went to a christmas eve service at our church but meh. we kind of phoned it in. so on that note, before we opened the presents this year we sat around and read the bible, talked about God and how blessed we were. i sat on the couch wiping tears out of my eyes hearing augustine, who is 4 1/2 show the first sparks of comprehension of what david and i believe. i of course want him to follow us in that faith in Jesus but naturally can't force him. it just made me really emotional to hear him tell us what he thought about God, Jesus, Christmas, etc. we invest in our children and for us, we are investing in faith - that is our family business that we want him to inherit. oh, and david got me sims for wii. remember the sims intervention of 2k3? (david pretty much had to make me promise i would never play it again because i was a total addict) and here he is bringing alcohol to the AA meeting! clearly, he wants me to fail in my recovery!! (YAY!)

also, unrelated but totally relevant because i say it is, rosalie baxter is awesome.




olive found my lipstick. awesome


(augustine is in the back row in the middle) so i finally had "the moment". the moment that i've been waiting for since getting pregnant basically, where you go to your kid's first whatever and they are on stage and they start waving at your and saying HI MOM and maybe every one else thinks it's annoying but you think it is the sweetest thing in the world. actually during the program one of the teachers was talking about how the school is selling books and videos as a fund raiser and she holds one up and augustine yells MOM! IT'S A COOKBOOK! YOU'LL LIKE IT! and i gushed because he knows me so well & thinks about me like that.


yah. cute

what english sounds like to foreigners

i have been jamming to this video all day long. an italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to represent what english phonetics sounds like to foreign ears. not a single word of it is sensible and yet it sounds so real! plus that beat is awesome!

just a snapshot

augustine, dec 14

artSWAP

tonight we packed up a bunch of our old art that we have collected over the years but not longer hung up and went to an artswap event at this amazing local placed called wild goose creative. it's a space for hosting anything involving creative events - bands, film screening, art shows, improv, stand up, basically "sustainable partnerships and artistic collaborations". we dusted off some old derek hess prints and radiohead lithographs we had lying around and hit the town. the kids came with the intent of making art on the spot to trade (HOW ADORABLE). it was a great event and people brought everything from paintings to screen prints on canvas and silk, baked goods, design time, knitted wares, etc.

i must say as a mother i witnessed something new tonight in augustine. he drew three different prints and displayed them on a small table next to what we brought. he stood there the entire night, serious as you can imagine, peddling his creativity. i literally had to walk outside and sniffle a little bit, it was that touching. sometimes augustine can be a little unsure of himself, almost a little melancholy about his abilities but tonight he was so proud, so confident and in the moment - it was just too much for my mother heart to take. it was like looking at a snap shot of the tiny man inside him.

a woman was interested in one of our kid a prints and she offered 5 boxes of truffles (hi, yes). i told her i'd take 4, with the condition that she trade one to augustine for one of his prints. i'm telling you the kid grew a whole inch in height and the barrel of his chest another inch when he strode over and told me that someone had traded him for his art. then i really started sniffling.

another woman, who worked with paper, saw what the woman had done and approached olive about trading one of her prints for a handmade card. olive beamed and ran circles around me waving the card around wildly. i was so blessed by the sweetness of those two women!

we ended up coming home with 5 boxes of truffles & some AWESOME superhero prints from the extremely talented adam brouillette.


EDIT:
also there was a guy there with a mohawk and olive yelled "MAMA, THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE A ROOSTER" and david and i laughed until we cried

sick day

yesterday as i was loading the kids and i into the car to run errands i turned around to see olive barfing, and barfing, and barfing in the back seat. i pulled her out and she proceeded to barf some more in the middle of the street, then down her dress, then on the floor in the hallway, then in the bathroom, and finally stripped naked sitting on a teensy stool in front of the toilet, again into the commode. it was the most sad, pathetic thing i've ever witnessed to see a naked two yr old gripping the side of a toilet seat and heaving. she is feeling a little better today, no more barfing. i, however am now sick and got out of bed only for a few hours the entire day. the kids were angels about it too. we had a harry potty marathon, lunch in bed, i took a nap with augustine here, and then thanks to our new u-verse from at&t, played sudoko on the tv. i did drag myself out of bed to get into a tepid bath and to get more water.

after watching the part in the prisoner of azkaban where harry's parents are murdered and he is spared augustine leaned over and put his head on my shoulder, stroked my hair, and told me he hoped i never died. and that if i did he would miss me. O M G

tour de lance

it took me 27 yrs but i can finally say that i am officially a fan of a professional sport. see, when you grow up in central ohio you are born into a culture. a culture of rabid, fanatical maniacs who bleed scarlet and gray for the ohio state buckeyes. im not denying that i love the buckeyes but i often see it as being something you're just born into. i know i sure was. (have i ever mentioned my fathers secret wish that we would get married on the saturday that ohio state plays michigan and our wedding colors were scarlet and gray? FACT) so i am mildly surprised that i have actually broken off from what was perhaps indoctrinated into my DNA and found another sport to love in professional cycling. now, if im honest it is almost entirely to do with my love and admiration for lance armstrong but the fact remains that i am fanatical about a sport, and i am choosing this addiction of my own free will. odd, i never took myself for a sports fan. and yet, when i think about what the ultimate experience would be, what moment i could conjure up that would reduce me to sappy tears a lot of things come to mind. one of those would be to see the tour de france live, specifically to see lance armstrong charge up my favorite mountain alpe d'huez. in my minds eye i can see myself running next to his bike with a huge american flag, screaming and cheering and then as he rides away probably busting into tears of pride and inspiration. remember the time this summer that we made eye contact? he would love to see me there!

this video, yeah i watch it on repeat all the time


and the moment from 3:07 when beloki crashes (and ends his career sadly) from the tour 2003, and lance rides across an open field? i almost choke watching it every. single. time. a much better, more complete version of the crash/save here.

so. i am trying to be sensible and darn it i know i should be, (WILL BE, HAVE TO BE), but i am trying in vain to convince david that we should pack our bags and go see at least one week (of three) of the tour in 2010. this could be and good grief i'll be surprised if it's not! lance armstrongs last tour. the man is in fantastic shape but he is the oldest rider! (he turned 39 in september) david has said, and in my head i agree with him, that for him the price is too much for a temporary, single experience especially if i haven't been into cycling all that long. i reason that an experience is priceless, and this might be the only time when the planets align themselves for us to witness history before lance retires. there is only the most remote chance that we will go but i am silently hoping that we somehow jump and do it. but! i know it makes sense to david, and in part me too, to skip the live version and just watch it on tv. in this regard david and i are kind of different. i value emotional experiences much more than he does.

and me? running next to lance armstrong with an american flag shouting and crying? PRICELESS


bonus! if we go i will make you all watch three straight weeks of the tour trying to find me on tv bawling my eyes out!