oh blow dallin blow!

the beauty of fall and all the leaves!

gives my husband something fun to do on a simply gorgeous saturday afternoon...

don't you just love the changing of seasons?? i do...

death in a bottle

wonder what this is?? it's a disease in the making...

i've hesitated to share the following photo, mostly for my personal pride, but after much contemplation decided it is all for the better to share. beginning in october i started to notice these random spots all over my body-- typically on my hands, wrists, feet, forearm, shins, calves, ears, and then one day my face-- to which i diagnosed myself the "quasimodo disease."unfortunately it came just one week early to halloween-- it could have been an award winning costume.

after two months of what the doctor diagnosed as "hives" or common allergic reaction, and two weeks of writing EVERYthing i ate or put in my mouth, nothing seemed to match how many new spots i was receiving a day. the more i itched, scratched, the bigger the spots spread... i truly concentrated on NOT scratching, but who can control that in the middle of the night!

until one day, it dawned on me, two months ago i purchased this new refill, nothing fancy hand soap. to which i have now dubbed DEATH IN A BOTTLE. yup. after not using this soap anymore, i've had ZIP ZERO ZILCH... NO hives. the pieces all made more sense after this blessed epiphany... once i had the hives i used the soap ten times more to wash my hands of the cream i was using to stop the OUT OF CONTROL itching and swelling. i began to wash them even more when they were getting worse for fear of spreading them to myself. when my feet are cold i habitually wash my feet in the bathroom sink and wash them with the handsoap to warm them up. and the day i woke up as quasimodo, the night previous i used the simple handsoap to remove my make-up from sunday.

nothing soft about this!

alas, this is my plea to friends and family... please don't purchase this hand soap. not sure any of you would have the same reaction, but who wants to find out? and, i'd like to be sanatary, if this is all you offer for handsoap then you can guarantee i won't be washing my hands. and i'll be sure to wipe my hands all over you ;), your children, and your little dog too...

Anika turns ONE!

so officially anika's birthday is november 6 2007... and she's ONE! just some pics of our little angel... i know... pictures of my dog turning one?? isn't it obvious i have no children.... haha!
fun to see she went from brunette to blond ;)

PLAY BALL!!!

softball seasons have come to a close... only one charity tournament left this saturday and it's over for 2008. this was the tuesday night co-ed c league dallin and i played for: Gloves of Stone... we placed second in the end of season tournament. really good games that night.

dallin hit a GRAND SLAM in the middle of the second game clearly over the fence and another just over the fence home run he was ROBBED of... the guy climbed the fence and caught it. mister left center fielder who made the catch thanked dallin after the game though, said he's always wanted to make a catch like that. we could only congratulate him for his good play and laugh. we almost had those buggers! and the night was beyond FREEZING!! guess we'll just get 'em in the spring ;)

wicked halloween...

we have to add this seriously well done halloween costume by our sister inlaw shannon and her friend... in theme with WICKED... she was glinda and her friend elphaba... we are thoroughly impressed! dallin and i on the other hand, didn't have a reason to dress up this year, so we basked in hearing what others decided to dress up as! until next year...

the wizard and i...

okay seriously, one of THE best musical's ever came to the again noted, fabulous fox theatre. if you're from georgia, then you'll understand that you can't say fox theatre without calling it fabulous first... it's its dubbed alliteration... anyways, WICKED came to atlanta for the month of october so dallin and i jumped on that one! i was nervous after the "not a fan of musicals" routine for round one of Les Mes... but alas, Glinda and Elphaba shined through with a spectacular performance!!

dallin and michelle give it two thumbs up!

it's naptime, it's naptime, it's naaaaaaaaap-time!

anika has gotten in to the habit of joining us when we nap. she's not allowed on the bed unless we give her permission to come up. during naptimes, she can't stand being left on the floor cold tile, so she'll sit right to the edge of the bed, she's just tall enough to sit and peak over, and whine until you let her up. trickily, she doesn't even move when she's whining at us, kind of like "what? you hear that whining? it's not me doing that."

so suckers that we are, we give in... she's fit's just so perfect! quite the snuggle snuggle girl as my sisters can contest... something about sharing the kids blankets right before bedtime when they visited over the summer??? hmmmm...

Les Miserables...

one of my most favorite historic pieces in georgia is the fabulous fox theatre. it's gorgeous. when they filmed gone with the wind, the entire cast came to this theatre for the first showing... see it's historic... well, this time they were featuring the musical, Les Miserables. i haven't seen it yet, only read the book in high school. and i hear it's one you just "have to check it off your list and see"

so dallin and i along with our good friend Neil, marta-ed (aka subway-ed) to the Vortex for dinner (yah, not quite fox worthy, but good burgers) and saw the beautiful performance!

well, i thought it was beautiful and very artistic, loved the music, ombiance, etc... dallin on the other hand, well, not so much. he could do without all the singing. musical?? all in all, CHECK CHECK!

no gas.

i kid you not we have no gas in georgia. did someone forget us? i'm sure you out of state-ers are completely UN-aware of this oversite as NO-ONE seems to know about what's going on in georgia. unless you are the so called blessed state of NY or the twin towers with an airplane headed your way, or persons with the last names, McCaine, Pallin, Obama and what's his name... then you wouldn't even have the slightest incling there's a GAS SHORTAGE. the darn media is so skewed. this IS headline news!!!!! really spooky... seeing a gas station empty... all pumps flagged off and not one drop to spare. makes you think "prime the pump"... or on the other extreme it's a crazy mad house with cars LINED into the streets trying to suck dry the last available droplets of gasoline.

(photo curtisy of my friend sara snow ;)

paddle, paddle, paddle...

AHOY!!! i'm sailing!! well ... paddling!

glenridge hall has these barns built in 1915 (aka, the dairy barn our home, being one of them) but they are huge! they used to have equestrian horses in them, cattle, the carriage... now they are just storage for treasures... one saturday morning, dallin and i discovered a paddle boat tucked away! and of course we had to clean it off and take it for a dip in our lake. let me tell you though, this was no easy task. the boat already had water in the base from the previous paddlers, so it was crazy HEAVY! between the two of us we could only lift it to the polaris trailer bed. there was NO walking this sucker.

honestly it was pretty daring of us.... we had no idea if the thing would be lake worthy (and this is no "pretty" lake-- it's dark and stagnant), but we floated and just basked in the sun... i was fine as long as we were slime free. anika fit right in too ;) fed the fish some left over dogfood we had. what a summer almost autumn day!

pop and pup time...

dallin had a leisurely september with no school and job hunting... which meant for anika lots of outdoor play time! on the 47 acres where i work, there are plenty of places to roam. dallin and anika decided to make an afternoon of it...

snip snip here... snip snip there!

dallin receives his first "wife" haircut. i like it longer he likes it shorter... we compromised and this is what you get. he was so an infomercial... making the face for the *before* shot and smiling like this was the greatest haircut after for the *after* shot.... and mind you, we should have done a better styling job. it looks good in person i promise ;) it just takes a lot of patience sitting in a chair for so long...

*

Charlotte's Web...

for those of you who don't know, there really is such thing as a writing spider. some may call it creepy but for some odd reason i find it rather cool! E.B. White was not making this one up... mind you this charlotte doesn't write words, or have blue eyes, but she does create a zig zag web. Z's down the middle of her web. one of the many fascinating creatures of Glenridge Hall... she's my favorite, and she's HUGE! (i actually found 4 writing spiders. they're easy to keep a watch on, they never move. Aranea (name from the play) the smaller one makes a tighter web of Z's.)

i caught a photo of charlotte eating a grasshopper. and you'll notice, they're the SAME SIZE!!! beautiful markings... i find it ironic i played charlotte in my elementary school play and i have blue eyes..." swing spinnerettes, let out the thread, the longer it gets the better it's read"... i still remember some of my lines! haha!

and her egg sac is the size of a large gumball... wonder how many babies are in there! now that's just a disgusting thought!