heyMamas

Small miracles

OH MY GOD!!!  OH MY GOD!!!  OH MY GOD!!!  OH MY GOD!!!

Do you notice the size of this picture?  The ability to see it clearly!!   Did you notice that???

I am so beyond excited and I feel like a new woman.  I have really been struggling with my crappy pictures for so, so long and I DID NOT know what I was doing wrong.

I mean, yes I do take most of my photos with my iPhone for convenience reasons, and I am okay with that, but my pictures always look like shit compared to everyone else's and I can only imagine how tired you must be of my lame-ass excuses for why they suck so badly. 

But those days are O-VER....

Today by MYSELF, and I say that so proudly because Drew thinks any piece of electronic equipment that I come into contact with, doesn't stand a chance of lasting more than two years because I will KILL it, destroy it for no good reason other than I touched it, which leaves him always having to do ALL of my technical stuff....but this, THIS I did by myself.

I found a place in Flickr where you can choose all sizes on your photos and then copy that HTML into your post and voila, your pictures look like this one.

I could have gone even bigger but the whole picture won't fit.  The whole CLEAR picture wouldn't even fit into the post.

You have NO idea, internet, I am like a new woman and NO ONE, not even the fact that it has been raining for four days straight, and I am a person very vulnerable to bad weather equaling bad moods, NO ONE can annoy me for the rest of the day, maybe even the rest of the month or even year, that's how happy I am.

I feel very blessed to have finally learned what every other person in the blogosphere has known for quite some time.  Very blessed indeed and okay that I am so late to the party cause at least I made it.

 

**Now I need to learn to take great photos like so many other great bloggers do.

 

Steps away

So for some reason yesterday morning while I was walking to my office from Penn Station, I took this picture.

 

  

I am not exactly sure why I took it other than the fact that I walk by it every day and think it is an exciting place. 

Times Square. 

Visitors from all over the world converge on Times Square during every day of every season throughout the year, rain or shine, with their cameras pointing straight up to the sky practically, all in the hopes of capturing a stunning picture of the massive billboards. 

Last summer the City decided to create these little pedestrian areas in highly trafficked spots where people could sit in the street and just enjoy the sights, since basically outside of Central Park and a chosen few other great parks, we are indeed a concrete jungle. 

So they closed off Broadway to cars and pedestrians can walk right up Broadway until they run right smack into the heart of Times Square.  I mean walk right smack dab in the middle of a New York City street!  In Times Square.  Pretty cool.

In the summer they even put out lounge chairs.  I mean lounge chairs smack dab in the middle of a New York City street!  In Times Square.  Pretty cool.

{Yes, I meant to say that twice.  It's called emphasis.}

I walk by about 7:30am and it is so peaceful and open, so I snapped the shot.  When I left work later in the day I walked down Broadway as I always do, I turned back to look into Times Square and noticed that they had finished building what I now knew was a giant stage.

{If you look in my photo above at the big white thing in the middle, that is the back of the stage}

I thought about snapping another picture so I could do like a before and after shot, but didn't want to miss my train which would have meant another twenty-five minutes away from my angels. 

And honestly, I could not run the risk of looking like a tourist and possibly seeing someone from my office.  Because you know I live a double life, and no one knows about THE BLOG at work, except just a few.

After I saw what was going on, I continued racing towards Penn Station and wondered what was going to be happening later on in Times Square.  I thought to myself, for all the years I have lived in New York I have never been to a live show in Times Square, or taken a carriage ride in Central Park, or been to the Statue of Liberty {except as a young child on a class trip}, or Ellis Island or walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Clearly, I haven't wasted any time thinking about the things I haven't yet done as a life-long New Yorker. 

And I want to.

But I am always so busy running.

 

So tonight as I was trying to look up authentic photos of New York that I thought would be fun to feature here {ONLY until I learn how to take my own pictures when I get around to buying a good camera...see above...busy running}, I found this little tidbit below.

 

Photo: Kevin Blair, starpulse.com

The Black Eyed Peas in a surprise concert, right in the middle of Times Square. 

Yup, that's all, nothing major.

 

 

Just ignore this link below....this is me trying to add the Bloglovin' button to my Follow Me section on my site and if you don't use Bloglovin' you totally should.  I just discovered it the other day and it is an amazing way to catch up on all your favorite blogs in one place.  I know there are other ways to do that but for some reason I think Bloglovin' is the best.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/1600434/heymamas?claim=qch7rerj7su">Follow my blog with bloglovin</a>

Curious

{This is my category called Mama's Bits where I discuss a piece or person that is highly relevant at the moment in pop culture in an effort to catalog for my girls, who and what was popular during their childhood.}

 

Since I decided to start this category a while ago, I have been waiting, patiently, computer at the ready, for a picture of this clan together which doesn't happen often.

Sure you see pictures of Angelina with Maddox, or Brad alone with Shiloh but very rarely do you see them all together.  This photo is as close as I have ever come to seeing them all together, although the twins are missing.

 

 

This is a great photo and they do look extremely happy.  But whoa, what is the deal with these two?

One day we hear that Brad and Angie are sharing a romantic dinner and the next day, Brad is living in the guest house on their rental property.   

Then there was the week that Angie didn't believe in monogamy, and Brad had moved to a new bachelor pad in LA. 

WTF?

And not that I care {much}, but I want to know the truth here!!  I want to know what is going to happen with these two dammit! 

Ya know, I used to really like Angie.  I thought she was beautiful of course because that you can not deny, but I also thought she was cool and seemed to really live her life in a way that was true to herself.  And I dug that.

Now, lately, I just don't know about her.  She has six children with a man she is not married to, and that I am totally cool with, but I think she made a mistake by saying that she doesn't believe in being held down by one person.

Whether it be a marriage or a long-term commitment, but when you decide to bring six children into a family unit I feel you should have enough respect for your partner not to say things like that out in the media. 

I just don't know what I think about her anymore or if I really care {I'm a loser} but her statement just rubbed me the wrong way and I started to think she was more of an idiot than a cool feminine figure. 

Sometimes I feel sorry for Brad and wonder if he wishes that he never got involved with her.  They have six kids together now and for those kids, I hope they stay together, but sometimes the person who you are most drawn to and intrigued by is not always the best person for you to build a life with.

Yeah, so I think it's safe to say that this post was probably more about me and my feelings than my girls.  I'll try harder next time around.  Promise.
 

Sometimes kids can really suck

When I put Belle to bed tonight she told me that she started crying at recess today because her "friends" started running away from her, which I know they have done before.

UGGGH, why do kids act the way they do??

WHY do children hurt other children in this way??

Don't little girls and little boys realize that little girls and little boys are young and impressionable and learning to develop self esteem.  And when kids are mean to other kids they are single-handedly destroying this precious self esteem that is trying so hard to develop.

Now I realize most kids who are mean to other kids, don't know what self esteem is, or don't know how hurtful their actions can be.  But c'mon kids can be so mean and it just plain sucks.

I make sure to ask the girls about recess every night because that seems to be the quickest way for me to get a pulse on the politics at school and sometimes the stories are good and sometimes the stories are like the ones I heard tonight.

And Belle is tough.  Believe me, she doesn't come right out and say, "I started crying at school today".  I have to DIG IN to get answers, but when I hear about what she told me tonight it absolutely breaks my heart.  To think of my daughter, the little angel that I carried in my belly for nine months and then practically died giving birth to, off in the corner at school crying while I am sitting clueless at work.

Totally breaks my heart and makes me want to home school my children. 

But what can I say? 

I tell her the same thing I always tell her, that little kids can be mean to one another and the best defense is to walk away and be independent.  And when you do that, your "friends" will usually come and ask you to play. 

And if they don't, don't worry, Mommy will be hiding in the bushes waiting to kiss their asses.

Brunch

This past Saturday, Drew made brunch for my cousin's family who just recently moved back to New York after a five year stint in Charlotte.  They have been here for over six months and we had yet to get together, so this brunch was LONG overdue.

 

 

 

Drew threw down quite a layout.

Unfortunately, I don't think this picture does each dish the justice it deserves, but I barely even got this picture taken before the food was whisked off the counter.

Drew made french toast, pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, english muffins topped with fresh salmon slices, crepes with melted Hershey chocolate bars alongside fresh strawberries and raspberries and topped it off with two packages of turkey bacon.

 

 

 

It was beyond delicious.

The food was consumed quickly and I was only able to grab one measly chocolate crepe with strawberries and raspberries.  The crepe was amazing, but I was robbed.

Lucky for me, Drew lives with me and kind of digs me so he has promised to make me crepes again next weekend.

I love him and the way he feeds me.