A case of the Mondays. For sixteen years.

Here's the thing. I am depressed.

I used to joke and say, "I have depression; depression doesn't have me." And at some points that was probably right. It's not any longer.

There are lots of factors, internally and externally. I don't really want to talk about them here because it'll just sound like I am complaining. I also don't feel like talking about why I am not seeking treatment yet. I just don't feel like explaining right now.

I don't feel like doing a lot of things.

But I wanted you to know because I know my blog (with the exception of the awesome REM video) hasn't been all kitties and rainbows lately. In case you were wondering what was up, that's it.

This too shall pass. Some Nora fun is coming soon though because I won an awesome contest! Thanks, Caley!

Here's some kitties and rainbows to leave you with though...


My view at the Maine Wildlife Park. I love trees.


My freakin' awesome kid, who happens to be getting two molars and is still having (mostly) a good time being freakin' awesome.

xoxo Nora

Come on, monsters....

You don't have to cry. We can be happy!



Watching this video with Liam has been making me happy this past week. I've needed it.

I hope you all have a pretty weekend. Any special plans?

xoxo Nora

I start to complain when there's no rain.

I have a very dramatic bruise on the arch of my foot because yesterday as I stepped over the gate in the doorway out of the living room, I stepped right on one of Liam's stacking cups. 50% of my weight went down my leg and into my foot and smooshed with my toes into the bowl of an itty-bitty plastic cup. My arch was lucky to catch the other 50% on the edge of the cup.

I was holding Liam and he was sleeping when this happened. I did a really good job of not screaming in pain or spitting the not-so-nice "MOTHERF****R!" or dropping him. I did knock down the gate though.

I know, I am full of piss and vinegar lately. I do like the rain, really. I love it- but I feel like a raincloud nowadays, and not in a good way.

part two

Dear Crappy Landlord (this time just you, guy),

Thank you for your friendly visit to my apartment this evening. Yes, evening, when my landlord shouldn't be showing up at my door without a call first, even though a phone call was specifically requested in the certified letter I sent to you.

I appreciate you not holding it against me that the only way I could get my ceiling fixed was by sending you that certified letter threatening a report to City Hall if you didn't bring my apartment up to code. Really, guy. I appreciate it. I love having friendly people in my house when I am having dinner with my toddler son.

Keep up the good work. Is my lease really up at the end of next March? Aw, shucks.

Sincerely,
Nora McCourtney-Wolf

I'm behind on my correspondence. Don't eff with me.

Dear Crappy Landlords,

I think it sucks that you turned off our heat in April. I think it sucks that you tried to have someone enter our apartment without notice one morning while my family and I were sleeping.

I also think it sucks that my ceiling has been leaking now for eighteen days and for each of these eighteen days you have done nothing about it despite my repeated requests.

I know you take care of your own house because you live right around the corner from me. I think the way you take care of your rental properties is appalling and you should be deeply ashamed.

Not only do I wish for my ceiling and the leak from someone else's bathroom to be repaired immediately but I would like for you both to come over to my apartment and lick the puddle off my floor before I Swiffer it.

Thank you for your rapt attention to me and my family's safety. I am sure all of your other tenants would like to thank you as well. That's what I hear from my neighbor across the hall.

Sincerely,
Nora McCourtney-Wolf

Happy Birthday Wishes for Texas Family

Happy Birthday 2 days ago to Uncle Bryan, and Happy Birthday today to Aunt Jules! We miss you. Here are some photos of Liam, your favorite nephew, for your birthday.

Love from Maine! xoxo

I miss Target

One of my Massachusetts cousins is having a baby at the end of August, and I wasn't able to go to her shower- gas prices, you know. I decided to send her a Target gift card.

Now, I live in Lewiston-Auburn, where we don't have Target. I live in Maine, where we don't have Super Targets. I know. Woe is me. My Target options are Topsham, Augusta or South Portland. Topsham is the closest, so I went there with Liam and picked up the gift card today.

I don't know if I have ever mentioned this but I love Target. I'm not going to justify my love for a corporation or consumerism (I also love Old Navy, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, so stick it) but I really do love Target. Being in there yesterday reminded me of how much I need to live closer to a Target, or write a very convincing petition to have one opened in Auburn.

I walked in past the women's and juniors clothes, awed by the colors and cuts. We looked at the toy section and got all wide-eyed at the fun selection. The part that hurt the most was the kids' clothes because ohhhhh they were so cute and reasonably priced but what hurt the most was that I can't afford any of it.

I know. Woe is me.

Times are tough for the McCourtney-Wolfs and even though I wanted to get one of every shirt in every size, and buy soft jammies, and stock up on pants and shorts, I managed to justify buying three shirts for Liam. Two were on clearance, and one was just... amazing. There was more I wanted, but I did the math and it would have been a bad idea. As it is, I need to return my swim suit bottom and a duplicate article of clothing we got for Liam's birthday at Wal-Mart to cover these three shirts purchased. Four would have pushed it- and five, and six, and seven, etc. Sad, isn't it?

This is why I love Target:


Clearance.



Clearance.

These will continue the cuteness, as Liam is already the proud owner of this Target find:




And this is the shirt I paid full price for because...



It's a freakin' Beatles shirt for my little son!!! With a cartoon of the Beatles on it! My mom and my brother Isaac will be absolutely tickled to see their grandson/nephew in a Beatles shirt. Not to mention Gabe and I being absolutely tickled to see our son in a Beatles shirt.

Emmeline, if you're reading this: I hope they have these at your lovely local Super Target for your boy. I thought of you right away when I saw it. Well, after I thought, Holy moly! It's a Beatles shirt!

Also I had to tear myself away from the crib/ toddler bed set that was clearanced for $55 and the larger-than-Liam stuffed dog on clearance for $12.

I know.

Dog! Dog! ..........DOG!

Have you gone HERE yet?

I am sitting in my studio with a postcard sketch in front of me and I really like it. Now I need to turn it into a collage and well... it's going to be hard and I'm stalling. I think it's getting done tomorrow.

We went to the Maine Wildlife Park this afternoon- it was the first time I have been there since the field trip in third grade, when it was still called the Gray Animal Farm. Turns out, I still love it. My only disappointment was not seeing any moose. We did see the deer close-up though, and even though I grew up in Maine seeing deer in fields and crossing back roads on a fairly regular basis, they don't cease to captivate me. Plus, these ones were used to being in the sanctuary and didn't run away when we approached the fence. They were SOCLOSE and SOBEAUTIFUL.

Liam's favorite word to say is dog, and he was pointing at most of the animals and calling them dogs. The kid's hilarious. There was a really sweet moment when I ran ahead of him and Gabe to take a picture of them walking (I am assuming that someday I'll get used to the fact that Liam walks) and I came back to the stroller as he and Gabe continued on... except Liam knew I was falling behind and he stopped walking to wait for me, his soft little face tipped up to the sun, eagerly anticipating me catching up.

I took a bunch of pictures and I'll post them sometime this week. My batteries died before we left, but I think I got some good ones anyway.

In the kitchen a while after we got home, when we were all hungry and fussy:
GABE: Dude, you need to chill out. You need to smoke some weed.
NORA: You need to smoke some not annoying.

*For the record, we're not smokers but we joke around about it when "chilling out" is a sarcastic part of our conversations.

What was your Saturday like?

The Sweetness

This was taken on Thursday evening, July 3, as we sat on Karsten's patio and ate dinner.




This was taken Saturday, July 5, as we lay in my parents' yard after Liam had run and toddled around in the grass. Lately his new thing when he's fatigued is to come and rest his head on me, wherever he can reach, and I could not love him more for it.


xoxo

Karsten is Truly Outrageous

I deleted my post asking for a site meter recommendation because it was boring. But thank you to AndreAnna, who recommended www.statcounter.com and wwww.sitemeter.com! Big help. Also, everyone else should read her blog. She is smart and hilarious and I love reading what she writes.

I also want to say Happy Birthday today to my big sister Karsten- she's the earliest reason I am afraid of the dark, she used to dress me up as Jem when I was four, she used to hand-me-down a lot of her awesome clothes to me like black shirts and ripped jeans, and she's the reason I loved (and, I won't lie, still love, sixteen years later) the awesome and lame acoustic love ballad, "To Be With You" by Mr. Big.



This is one of my favorite songs to sing in the shower, although I can't reach as many high notes as Eric Martin can, and I use it as a weapon when I want to be alone because Gabe thinks it's ridiculous and will always run away as soon as I say, "Hold on, little girl."

Thank you for that, Karsten, and everything else.

I love you. Happy Birthday.

briefly

I miss Gabe. I see him for less than an hour a day when he's working, and on his days off he's sleeping for most of it. His time spent awake is when I am catching up on the cleaning I neglect while I am the only non-sleeping parent.

He's working an extra day this week for the holiday/overtime pay. Extra money? Awesome. Missing the fireworks as a family? Not awesome. My parents are taking us instead.

My freezer currently has popsicles and fudgesicles in it and this makes me a very happy woman.

I am having increasing trouble solving those dang captchas (I think that's what they're called?) when I comment on some people's blogs. Am I the only one who has to re-enter them? I think sometimes the computer is trying to trick me in case I am a smart spamming robot, and I truly do get it right on my first try but it just wants to know how persistent I am. *shakes finger* Silly computer!

Yesterday while reading his beloved animal book, Liam pointed at the dog and said, "Jog!" and then at the cat and said, "Itty!" Now he calls dogs "dah!" and is really proud of himself. So proud that he almost voluntarily touched my parents' dog today! So his word count is up to seven: book, ball, baby, banana, bottle, dog, kitty.

I called the fire department last night at 10 about the smell of gasoline or oil and some alarm going off somewhere in the building. After an inspection of the cellar, they let me know our oil furnace is being switched over to a gas heater, hence the smell, and they didn't know what the alarm was. Also, someone's bathroom or kitchen right above one of my studio rooms is about to cave in from water damage so... yeah... NOT AWESOME.

We had dinner tonight on the patio at my sister and her husband's house, with my parents and younger brother. We ordered Chinese food. This also makes me a happy woman. I like leftovers.

I found out Daryl Hall is playing a free show in Freeport this Saturday. This makes me want to snap my fingers and sing "Maneater." I hope it makes him want to do the same. This Saturday. In Freeport.

This Saturday also holds cutting woodblocks with Laurel and my mum's birthday lunch. Big day.

I'm going to eat some fudgesicles now. Yeah. It's past 1 am and that's fudgesicles, plural.


________________________________
Please go here: Quiet City. Thank you.


xoxo