things i love thursday, late edition

the best vintage photo ever invented from pancakemama, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

*i love the vegged-out milk-filled look on the baby's face- like it's saying "duuuuuuh-"

this thrifted photo, gifted to me from pancakemama

fresh mint and lemon water, although i think i'm developing a sensitivity to mint (just like my sensitivity to tomatoes and oranges that i choose to ignore)- right now my lips are all swollen and around my mouth is all itchy

fudgeicles (not the right spelling, but it's late)

homemade guac in big ceramic bowls

project freakin' runway, and getting my mother-in-law addicted and debriefing on the phone with her about it today

watering my plants with the water from my dehumidifier (not the plants we eat, though)

the cool breeze tonight

the weekend wedding rain

borrowed clothes

a fridge full of fresh groceries, finally

just finishing "three weeks with my brother: a memoir" by nicholas and micah sparks- you'd think it would be kinda cheese, but seriously- another really good book. inspired me to life more fully and really live my best life

rolling into bed right now after one of the longest days ever

oh, and mail love- i got FOUR wonderful treats in the mail today- more to come on this. but db, THANK YOU. i love each and every piece of my goodness. and when i go to bed right now, i'm going to re-read my little booklet.

and hildy, my daughter loves her stickers, and i can't wait to use my "grown-up" one. thank you lovely ladies.

self portrait tuesday: me as transportation

i'm a hip, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

me as....transportation

at any given moment in the day, i am used as transportation- a means for getting around. at times i wish i had even bigger and wider hips than i already have. and shoulders. and legs to hang onto. and crotch bone to be slammed into with tiny little skulls.

i'm getting off track here, aren't i?

more self portrait lovins at www.selfportraitchallenge.net

a journal a day keeps the doctor away

mail love

sweet and lovely amanda's package- a journal with the best inscription and tags and pony-licious stickers for the babe. thank you my keelers- every time i use it i will think of you and your cuteandedible children. especially thank you for thinking of gracie and making her happy for the whole day, talking and dreaming about ponies.

michelle's package: a loved copy of "the prophet" which i've never read, a great postcard with a message from her, too, and then lots of wonderful bits and bobbles- treasures that gray can't wait to get her grubby paws on! i loved seeing your handwriting and the excitement of opening up each and every little package inside. and the cigar box just about stopped me in my tracks because of the freakin'coolness of it. thank you.

angela's sweetsweet package- filled with love and homemade goodness- how perfect is her watercolor? now i'm on the hunt for the perfect frame. i want to eat the pieces of paper she sent, and her painted cards, and the bitsies, too.

mindy sent me a wish jar that brought tears to my eyes- filled with a touching message and wish for foreverfriendship, and a beautiful shell necklace and the best part was one of those little coins that you can make at the beach (or arcades in general i guess, i just associate them with the beach) that says "nina beana wish 2006 xo". lots of people call me nina bina but i especially love that mindy has taken on calling me this. it holds a special place in my heart, because in the begining of my relationship i told john this story about how every time i went into the orthodontist's office for a checkup on my braces, he would (loudly) say "NINA BEANA, SOMEONE'S BEEN SUCKING THEIR THUMB!" (mind you, his office wasn't private, it was a big room with all his patients in chairs listening to him interact with all the other awkward teenagers). and john pretty much thought this was the funniest thing ever and immediate took to calling me nina beana all the time. and randomly screaming out "nina beana, someone's been sucking their thumb!" anyway, thank you mindy, your package brought not only tears but also all these delicioso memories.

oooh, and ani at pancakemama sent me the best vintage photo i've ever laid my eyes on. of course you can't see it here, because like i told ani, grace is trying desperately to snatch the fresh flower seals that she also sent. and my family is bugging me to make the rice krispy peanut butter ice cream sandwiches (hello!) and the buttons are so yummy i also want to eat them. you can see a close-up of the vintage goodness over at my flickr account.

thank you to each and every one of you for sharing such special parts of yourself with me.

until i write again

Video Hosting - Upload Video - Video Sharing

here's a little video of the diva passing out from a weekend of fun (not this weekend, maybe a couple of weekends ago?) while eating her dilly bar. she managed to get most of the cherry coating off but couldn't keep up her stamina to eat the whole thing. listening to my own voice in this video is like hearing nails on a chalkboard, esp. with my kickin' accent, but you gotta love how my girl just sleeps through my annoyingness. happy monday morning-! i'll be spending the weekend doing damage control with gray because she was gone all weekend- i need to reprogram her and despoilbrat her and try desperately to get her back to normal. maybe i'll be back at naptime (ha! i wish).

seriously heartalicious

i'm seriously hearting this comic person/illustrator/funnyassperson. see it here. well, here will take you to a specific strip that just had me laughing. here will take you to the main site. kawaii not: the comic of cute gone bad. love it! not sure how i found this- so if i found it through big bad beautiful you, then thank you!

off to bed to rest my head. but before i go, let me tell y'all that i just finished reading such a good freakin' book called "the magician's assistant" by ann patchett. (thanks steph!) i thought it may be a chicky poop shoot but it was so powerful to me. i feel like i'm still living in the book. i never wanted it to end. i love when i'm there with the characters. although the whole book has a pretty sad feel to it, it was sort of magical. ok, enough from me.

quick things i love:
picnics at the park
debriefings with mother in law
gardening with gray
buying herbs and "saving" onions from horrible greenhouse fates because they look pathetic
swimming with naked pum
dirt lines in sweaty necks
wonderful, glorious mail. thanks forthcoming, but my sisters, just know that i'm in mail heaven

holy pho-ly and photobooth friday

photobooth details unknown- nothing on the back. high school? college? i'm thinking college. summer. grateful dead t-shirt with rainbow. hair slicked back in usual tight braid. trace looking sweet-as-pie and sassy as usual. innocence. pre-kiddos for me and pre-hubby for trace. the good old days. the epitome of summer.

last night i discovered, thanks to kim, my new favorite restaurant. pho in dracut. the most deeelicious food i've had in a long time. after my day yesterday, i needed a break. rarely do i get out for myself without the little ones in tow. and last night i reaaaaly needed it. gray had the toughest day- screaming and yelling, eyes rolling back in head, saying mean and hateful things. i have no idea where this is coming from. early rebelling against the hippie establishment? i had some scary flash-forwards yesterday to her teenage years. so last night, every bite of pork dumpling was that must tastier, every sip of limeade that must sweeter.

johnny, if you're reading this this morning, i really miass you. i know you're going to be busy this weekend, but can we have a family meeting? can we have fun? can you take caramel? can we go exploring and have fun-ness? i need you. meow. (it's obviously been one of those weeks).

trip to connect-i-cut and all the other stuff in my head

here's all the things i have to say:

1. holy comments! i send a special thank you to each and every one of you fantastic people who took a second to pass on a kind word about my nursing shot. you never know how others will react- and each comment was like a little shot of tequila that i threw back and savored. wonderful, powerful, perfect. thank you for looking at my peeking little man and getting enjoyment out of it! you can even see my boob up at self portrait challenge.

2. i'm wicked behind on emails and phonecalls and dishes and keeping-life-together activities. i go through this sometimes. (esp. sara m's sweet email today-, and erina's invite- we wish we could come, but johnny is hosting his brother's bach party this weekend- oh lord- but thank you and have some fun for us!). please bear with me. vacations and showers and parties and get-togethers and mini-day-trips throw me off. i'm like a little kid that needs to stick to a schedule. except we really don't have a schedule here. being in the car throws me off i guess. i'm sorry. i'm tired. i love you all. i love your emails and your faces. i will get to you when i pull my head out of my fanny. and kristen, laura, and michelle, i put your swappie packages in the mail today. it's the one thing i promised myself i had to do. that and take a shower. which i just managed to do and it's 2:06pm. it's one of those days.

3. yesterday i had the best day, spent in the company of boo and mama al and her wee ones. i would love to write about it eloquently here, but alas- i'm going to resort to posting scans of my journal. if you would actually like to read some of the words, you may need to click on the images to enlarge them. all i have to say is i heart mama al, i heart m+t+baby makes three, and i heart little ones running around with no shoes, i heart communes, and i heart cake batter ice cream.


4. tonight i'm going out with some of my girl-lady-friends. i'm taking jess's lead (no make-up though, i'm not quite ready for that!) and dressing up just because. just because i just took a shower and need something to feel pretty about. we're going out for vietnamese food, which i'm very excited about mainly because the only thing i ate today was plain pasta off the floor. so it's pretty much uphill from there.

self portrait tuesday

self portrait tuesday: me as a milkin' machine

for all of you who know me, you know that i'm constantly nursing- joey is grabbing and pulling and yanking the old shirt down. this pic was snapped as joey was peeking out from a blanket at steph's shower over the weekend. i love the sweet innocence. just a little guy trying to get his milk on.

since there's no real way of knowing if joe will be my last, i try to savor every minute of breastfeeding- the quiet, the letting down, the calmness. just in case he's my last nursin' man.

slow joe

slow start today. a large part of this past weekend was spent driving around MA and RI. showering it up. showers of love for steph and brian and their twin little peas and then yesterday was jenny's wedding shower (wedding in two weeks). i was social butterflying it up all weekend. john managed to squeeze in some taking-care-of-nina-time amongst the craziness and took me out for coffee cookies and cream ice cream at hodgies on friday night, and then last night (after being the driver for his whole fam to RI) i came home to this wonderful and elaborate meal, perfectly cooked, with my favorite drinkies and all.

my body feels tired and run-down today. sleep doesn't feel like enough lately. grace is all thrown off from being away from mama all weekend and being spoiled (not in a bad way, but spoiled nonetheless). so today my goals are simple: to stay home, to reset my family, to get back into a routine that will help us get through the week, to get into the garden, to cut vases of flowers and put some next to grace's bed to help her stay happy, maybe to swim, to cook some banana bread, to craft some gifties for my lovelies, to plan for my trip to CT on wed., to look forward to thursday night dinner with my girls. to get through the week. to have another cup.

just as an fyi- i read the best book the other night- it's called the three incestuous sisters: an illustrated novel by audrey niffenegger, the same woman who wrote the time traveler's wife. i am blown away, completely in awe of these illustrations. and the words; so simple, yet devastatingly beautiful. i want to eat this book.

jess and nin photobooth friday

jess and nin photobooth, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

aaah, the beach. and my bad perm. and jess. good times.

i especially like how the curtain in the back gets progressively more messed up as the pictures are taken. the beach is where i got my nose pierced at some really scary place (dreadz) and my parents almost disowned me. in these pictures i think jess is wearing a necklace of safety pins. we were always a little off. and i guess we still are a little bit, too.

i love photobooth friday. that's no secret (thanks hula seventy!). but i also love the process of photobooth friday- looking through all my old photos until i find yet another strip sandwiched in among the other embarrassing pics. last night i had jess (and boo) over for an impromptu dinner- i made some spinach and ricotta pies and jess brought a trillion delicious desserts from my favorite bakery and yummy wine that looked like perfume. until everyone else came, jess and i drank drinkies and caught up and debriefed like old times. and then had more drinks. we ate and laughed and got a little silly (the kittykats went to bed early). then we had to bust out some pictures- all my old polariods from the beach cottage, and i found a huge motherload of old photobooth strips in the bottom of one of my boxes. i laughed so hard my ribs were hurting me this morning (along with my head). jess is glowing. she's serious good peeps. i'm considering inviting her over for dinner every night.

also, a p.s.- four more pins left up for final swappies at swaparama mama

how my brain works

how my brain works, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

here's a little glimpse into my world, and how my brain works. it's very messy and cluttered in there, but somehow it all looks beautiful and perfect to me. move over the picture to see notes on each little doodad.

also, new stuff up for swappies at : www.swaparamama.blogspot.com

corny

taken at jen's house under one of seth's toys- joey was in heaven

i have a crush on seane corn and it has only been made worse thanks to acumamakiki. i was lucky enough to be sent seane's dvd's- 2 of them! last night johnny and i sat on our fannies and watched her interview. and stared at her. and laughed at ourselves to watching a yoga dvd while sitting on our fannies. but she's incredible. really, really incredible. i would like to be her someday when i grow up. or maybe just hang out with her forever and maybe take some of her classes. is it possible for someone to be that glowingly, naturally beautiful? and i love her even more because she's totally honest about how non-perfect she is- she's just a woman living her best life, being herself. thanks acumama for the videos and the inspiration! john and i also watched part of her "breath session" and it looked really strange when my dad came over only to see us staring at the tv.

lots of stuff to do today, like keep the kiddies happy. which should be a task in itself.

send love and energy into the universe to my girl boho. she's a special one. her "swirly angels" post is the best- and the picture is even better. i could look at it forever. keep her in your heart today and always.

swappie update later on today. maybe.

my trip in real words: journal excerpts

a peek into my journal because i'm still too tired to write it all down here again. don't mind the crazymanic handwriting please. and hopefully the charlton's don't dispute my facts! :)

my head's still stuck in my fanny

reason number 1 why my head is still stuck up there


in the meantime, until i can muster up a real post-, some of our vaca pics are up at flickr

with that being said, we're off for another day in the sun (or shade, preferably)- pools, berries, blankets, various meat products, tube tops (eeks!), and general debauchery.

hope you all are getting out there for the 4th! meow!

one freakin' tired mama

this was me today. this afternoon. after spending 13-14ish hours in the car over two days. with two kids. one of which is a breastfeeding on-demand ravenous 6 month old, and another who is a precocious, question-asking, make-believe playin' little three year old mama. our trip to watertown, NY (right up there near the canadian border) was wonderful, perfect, and all those other words i always use but don't quite describe exactly what i want to say. i'm going to write all about it tomorrow or the next day, along with pictures, as soon as i get some sleep tonight. truth be told i'm very sleep deprived. and have a serious case of the poop-shoot riots. i'm hoping that it's stress-induced because i'm hoping i didn't infect the charltons (sorry guys!). neighbor stuff reached a critical crazy point last week, which ended in me actually going outside and meeting her face to face, talking to her rationally, listening to her talk in tounges and tell me i should call the police on her, and me sticking to my hippie peace-love-togetherness lingo. she must think i'm a complete pot-smoking lovefest 2006. you should've seen the looks on her face when i threw around words like "community" and "respect" and "neighbor". so between that situation, some family drama thrown in, and the car-ride (along with hours and hours of banging)-my insides are paying the price. but the kiddies are great and for the most part were well behaved. seeing ro and jen and holding seth was like a strange dream that came true. being in watertown was like being back home.

just got in from long picnic day next to a castle, and then fireworks with the kiddies. my life is a dream. this is how happy it is-


it's almost sickening.

photobooth lovins, friday style

nin john and pum photobooth, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

out with the old vibes, in with the new! these pics were from our last sunday day adventures- we're all not showered, we're stinky, we're at our best. we had a plan to do "deer, moose, beaver", but john bailed at the last minute because he was holding sleeping pum, so i was left to my own animal devices.

i waited for the pics to develop, which felt like it took forever, while john went back to the car to put sleepingpummie back in his carseat. when i handed the goods to john to look at them and said "i love these. you look so happy!" that right there made my day.

today is our five year wedding anniversary. five wonderful years, two kids, and lots of crow's feet later, we're still going strong, having fun every day. i love you johnpiglet, piashire cat, mayaandmiguelito. you are the best i could've ever wished for. meow!

and today is also vacation! lots of packing and tryingnottostressdespitemajorroadclosures. can't wait to see you my charlton peeps!

i am hysterically dying laughing because i just read boo's post about the parking adventure and it's so characteristically mean spirited (why i love him) and then his old video just killed me. for any of you that don't know me personally, this is really how i drive...it's a nervous habit that's carried over from when i was little. we call it "banging". it's gotten me pulled over by the police a bunch of times. but it seriously helps me focus. you would get used to it after a while of driving with me. john isn't even phased by it any more. it only bothers him when i'm pregnant (i tone it down a bit). i love in the video how grace is all unphased by our crazy normal-for-us behaviors.

better person

trying to be the better person, i'm putting a note in her mailbox-

it reads

"dear neighbor,
judging from last night it's pretty clear that parking is important to you. in the future, we will try to let our guests know this and respect your space, so using the garbage cans won't be necessary. we value you and your family as neighbors and would like to continue to have a healthy and happy relationship with you all. please feel free to talk with us about your concerns.
warmly, the gilberts"


and ps- i didn't sleep at all last night because of this (i hate conflict) and joey was totally up all night too, vibing on my vibes.

a serious case of the crazies

oh my god- i have to write about this before i go to bed so i can get it out and get to sleep. my neighbor is seriously crazy. we've been nothing but nice to these people; waving, saying hello, smiling, cleaning up trash, etc. and this crazy mo fo woman (she's my age and lives with her parents- no judgement here but she seems pretty unhappy about it) is OBSESSED with her parking, and fighting with people in the neighborhood. anyway, with the new "my garbage cans are going to block my spaces" thing- boo parked his car in one of "her" spots tonight (she had moved her garbage can because it was garbage day and she needed to put her trash out in it)- and at 9:45p she comes home and starts beeping in front of my house like a madwoman screaming "I WANT MY SPOT! I WANT MY F'ING SPOT!". we were all scared in the house and nobody went out to confront her. i don't want this mo fo doing any crazy shit to me or my kids. but i'm completely livid right now that she'd be so disrespectful to my kids sleeping in their rooms at the front of the house. and to make matters worse, as soon as boo opens the door to leave, she runs out of her house, jumps in her car, and moves her car up 3 feet into "her" imaginary parking spot. this may not sound dramatic or crazy to most peeps, but if you see my street, and see how there are NO OTHER CARS parked anywhere on it, and see how far she's parking from her actual house, then you'd see why she's so crazy. and my mail was missing from my mailbox today, including a package that was going out, and i don't want to point fingers....but- looks like crazy mo fo neighbor wanted insises on the pin swap. so jen, if you don't get your pin, look for my neighbor sportin' it, listening to loud 80's music while cleaning her car of imaginary dirt.

ooooooooooh, bad karma.

things i love thursday, really bad (TILTRB)

gray's angelic glow


oooh, it's a new day. i'm trying to channel all the positive energy that i can. today my goals are to:

-do everything on my mental to-do list as soon as things pop into my mind. for example "oh, i need to change the toilet paper roll," or "oh, i should empty the dishwasher and fold the 18 loads of laundry on the guest bed"....and instead of just thinking those thoughts, actually DO them as soon as them come into my mind. so far today this has worked well except that it's only 9:37am and i've got until 8pm to roll with this.

-pack for our trip. pack up all our snackies. i'm a big snacker. and i'm a big packer. so watch out charlton's...here we come

-take the kiddies to the animal shelter to snuggle up to some lonely kitty cats and get scared by all the barking doggies and smell all the funky smelling little rodent thingies.

-try to eat at some point, preferably something healthy but probably not

so on with the things that i love, really bad:

-pesto

-pizza

-vacation planning

-finally getting out from underneath the 400+ emails in my inbox. i'm all caught up and erased (i had to get up at 5am this morning to accomplish this task)

-my neighbor. just kidding actually. i'm trying to stay positive about this hideous horribly mean human being who puts out trash cans on our street to save "her" parking spots, even though they are right in front of MY house- and even though we live on the smallest most untrafficy openspacey road in the whole of suburbia. it's ridiculous and her actions make her feel bad every time i look out the window. but then i just laugh because she's so unhappy and she cleans out her car blasting the most horrible music and i just take videos and laugh, laugh, laugh. i hope i'm never that unhappy. ps- i was very VERY tempted to go put my garbage in those garbage cans today but resisted the temptation as karma is serious and i didn't want to mess with it.

-grace has been a serious POW lately. all this week. a PIECE OF WORK. very defiant, very NO-ish, very rude and mean. but why do i love this? because when she wakes up in the morning she is the sweetest little angelic piece of loveliness i've ever seen. and today i'm killing her with kindness...melting her with my care bear stares.

off i go party peeps! have a fabulous thursday!