life in the garden of eden.

I found a couple of WordPress themes that I really like, so don’t be surprised if you see the maintenance splash screen intermittently over the next few days.

I’d finish tweaking them tonight, only I think I’m coming down with a cold.  So I’m going to sleep early.

I wanted to get to this on Friday, but somehow ran out of time. There has been some really entertaining play-by-post writing happening on various roleplay forums. Of those I frequent, the Dragon’s Mark - Red Dragon Inn roleplay forums have been a gold mine lately:

The characters in Motley Moxie on the Move by Lirssa Sarengrave have really captured my imagination.

What Broken Things Reflect by Sulissurn Xukuth alternately surprised, scared and amazed me.  I was astounded and impressed.

Every post in Perchance to Wake, by Adhamiel is neatly crafted with a beautiful, poetic cadence.

The scene set in An Urge Toward Happiness, by Piper is just masterful, with great use of imagery.

Even though I’m participating in the thread, Unintentional Arrival bears mentioning. I think the player behind The Doctor is doing a very good job at portraying the character. I’m having a hell of a time trying to set aside my inner fan girl and keep Alysia true to character.

And this exchange between HP Thoth and Kairee in the Red Dragon Inn Monday night made me chortle:

HPThoth: ::smirking:: I think you were bored. But you had your fill and left. Or found someone mildly amusing and enjoyed your evening at least a little.
Kairee: How do you know I didn’t just curl up with an Arcane tome
HPThoth: You very well may have. ::takes a sip of his drink:: Did you?
Kairee: A lady doesn’t tell. ::wink::
HPThoth: ::chuckles:: Touche. Since I am not a lady, I don’t mind mentioning that I curled up with…. a glass of juice, followed by a swim in the pool, and sleep.

Well.  Maybe you had to be there.  But it made me laugh, truly.

Mini rant incoming —->   I will probably garner some spite from this opinion, but I have not been enjoying the cross-posted Changed Lives (in Rhydin Town Center/Fairy Tales) and Altered Lives (in Rhydin Town Center/Drachen Walde) series, if only because it spams up my RSS reader with all the duplicate posts. I don’t need to read them twice! There’s a forum guideline that notes “Please respect other people’s time and don’t spam our boards (i.e., submit the same post more than once).” which has been ignored here for more than a year. It’s easy enough to roll my eyes and scroll on past, but what gives, I wonder? Should I start spamming all of my posts in any sub forum that might possibly be relevant, too? Think I’ll get bitched at if I do?

Lilithiel rendered an amazing character image for me a bit over a week ago.  Because Alysia is now without her signature weapons (er, I need to actually write that up, don’t I…), I requested my twin try a picture Alys with a lightsaber.  The final version turned out absolutely amazing:

The background for Alysia potentially obtaining a lightsaber is implicitly set down in To learn, where she is bequeathed a holocron.  I haven’t decided to take her down that route yet, though — Brian thinks a demonic elf-looking shadowmage Jedi/Sith is too over the top, even for Rhydin.  What do you think — bad idea / good idea?

I’ve come to accept that a big part of parenting is sleep deprivation.

While Aya has a firm bedtime (no later than 7:30 pm on weeknights), she gets up pretty much whenever she wants to — which is usually before 6:30 a.m. Which means I get up before 6:30 a.m. Even on weekends*. As a result, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve slept in since she was born! It’s been more than six years since I dozed until the sun neared it’s zenith.

It’s worth it, though. I love my daughter dearly.

I’m not really in a position to complain about Aya getting up early. Even though she is learning to tell time, it would do us little good to instruct her, “If you wake up before 8 o’clock, please let Mommy and Dad sleep,” as Brian and I don’t keep a clock in her room. So really, it’s our own fault!

But I just stumbled across this thing called a Teach Me Time talking alarm clock.

This is an adorable bedside alarm clock which displays both a traditional clock face and a digital time readout. It’s a cute design, friendly, round, and almost egg-shaped. The two “toes” on the clock are part of the teaching game. Even better, it acts as a nightlight with a timer: the body of the clock glows yellow, and changes to green when it’s “ok” to get up.

What a great way to reinforce the idea that it’s not okay to pounce the parents when they still need their sleep!

I need to get one of these for Aya while she’s still young enough to think it’s cool.

*Yeah, ok, she slept in until 7:30 this morning.

My result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test…

Longcat

53% Affectionate, 39% Excitable, 29% Hungry

Take The Which Lolcat Are You? Test at HelloQuizzy

Today, Aya was playing with her Littlest Pet Shop toys and talking about glitter boxes.

She meant litter boxes.

I took some time and explained to her the difference between glitter and litter. She laughed.

Starred in my Google Reader:

First, Arborio Rice Pudding with Cinnamon-Cardamom Streusel is another recipe from Sugar Plum that I really need to find time to try out.  It looks toe-curling good.

And then there’s Michael’s Simple Summer Pickles from Urban Garden Casual.  My cucumbers aren’t ripe yet, though. PICKLES!

While you’re thinking about pickles and pudding, read Feeding the PMS Beast on simply stated.  I’ve actually tried chicken, salmon and tofu to take the edge off PMS cravings, and not one did a damned thing. Rice pudding and pickles do, so there you go.

Gardening with Children is an article from Urban Garden Casual which offers seven planting ideas to spark your kid’s interest in gardening. The top two are radishes and carrots, which germinate quickly. I planted neither this year, but Aya is very happy to see the aforementioned cucumbers growing.  She also likes the flowers on the watermelon plants.

Plague is another laugh-and-cry entry from the amazing Anne Nahm. Stay away from people who have pinkeye, even if they claim it’s just a sinus infection!

Finally, Read the Numbers on Your Fruit is an article from SkrewTips that explains just what those little stickers on the fruit you buy at the supermarket mean. Here’s a hint: if the number on the sticker starts with 8, look for something else.

After spending about two weeks down with tonsillitis, Aya has started complaining that she’s bored with summer vacation.  She has cabin fever.  She’s tired of computer games and DVDs and TV.  Hanging out with her dad isn’t good enough; she wants to meet up with her friends. She wants to go out and do things.

She would enjoy doing arts and crafts at home, but Brian isn’t into that sort of thing and there’s not enough time when I get home from work for us to get started on any projects.  I don’t have enough energy to pull off that whole Supermom thing, anyway. I can work full time or be a mom full time. . . I can’t do both.

Anyway. Since her tonsils aren’t enormous anymore, I decided it was probably okay for Aya to go out for a while yesterday; she went to the park, but no one else was there and that left her a little glum.  She has a “play date” (I hate that term!) with some of her school buddies this afternoon - which should help with the doldrums.   And I might take her to the movies this weekend.  But these are temporary solutions to a problem that’s going to drag out another month.

The local parks and rec district offers karate, ballet, art, gymnastics, hip hop dance, and nature/ecology classes.  I’ve been tentative about asking Brian to start scheduling her for summer classes, because I remember vigorously resenting the fact that my mom shoved me into performing arts summer school and vacation bible school every year until I was in junior high.  And then it was college prep classes for summer school.  I loathed it all.  However, my daughter loves school in a way I never did – so maybe she’d enjoy the extracurricular challenges.

What did you do during the summer when you were a kid?