Hearts View the World

This little beauty has taken a long time in coming. I started this piece in the middle of last month. It is called, as you might guess, "Hearts View of the World" (or you could leave OF out). I have it listed in my shop (http://torimade.etsy.com/) if you'd like to see more of it (side, back, closeups). I don't have time to include all that here. Jess is home and letting me work, but I want to have dinner with the family. :) Also, on the page you get when you click on this piece of ToriMade art (!^_^!) you'll have access to a pretty comprehensive explanation of the symbolism I had in mind as I made this lovely group of hearts. Hasn't a thing to do with Valentine's Day, in case you're thinking I'm a couple months late. heehee ;)

I also wanted to note that Jess blew up Ria's birthday pool today. The three of them played in it and had a blast. Kitty Kat loved her swim suit so much she threw a hissy fit when she had to get her street clothes back on afterward. So funny.

Have I mentioned how much of a sort of overacter Kat is becoming?? Oh, MY goodness!!!! Ok, so this is just an example, but it happens pretty frequently about any number of things. So, she scraped up her knee the other day when I let her run with Ria on one of our walks. NO prob! She got up and kept running. She didn't notice it a bit. Well, a few days later, after it was nicely scabby and hard, she started to pick at it (I do NOT know where she gets THAT tendancy!!!). She was successful with a bit and it hurt. She looked up from her work with this FUNNY "OH" coming from her mouth with wide eyes. Her whole face made the "Oh"! It was so funny. Then she decided it hurt enough that she should cry, so she covered her mouth with her hands and bent low over her knee to "boohoo" literally! It was hilarious!!!! She's even gone so far, in one of these 'overacting' moments of drama to cover her mouth with the BACK of her hand! Can you imagine???!! It's probably one of THE funniest things I can remember right now. Kids are BETTER than TV, don't you think? (I definitely do, specially since we don't watch TV, so I don't really know what's on.)

Let's see... what else is new and interesting in the Gollihugh, Jess and Tori, family? Well, I'm coming up on 14 weeks and very hopeful that the constant BLAHs will go away. I've been feeling SLIGHTLY less tired.

OH! Today I went to my first LLL meeting! It was really great. I was able to share some of my "wealth" of knowledge and get to know some other ladies who don't think I'm a bit weird for nursing my 18 month old daughter while pregnant AND having the desire and goal to nurse her until she's 2. I'm so glad!!!!

Kat doesn't nurse all the time, but it is often enough that people have seen it. There have been enough comments like, "You're pregnant, shouldn't you wean her?" Or perhaps more along the lines of, "I can't believe you're still nursing! You should definitely wean her. You're pregnant, afterall." Obviously, if you know anything about nursing or are even have slight lactivist tendancies (mine are WAY more than slight), you'll know that these comments are TOTALLY lame and ignorant. But, you see, I encounter this really uncomfy thing when I'm preggie and in labor... I become uncharacteristically vulnerable and almost unable to stand up for myself! Perhaps more correctly, my vulnerability affects me much more strongly and more often and inhibits my proactive-advocate-for-myself-and-child tendancies (which, believe it or not, even when I'm not preggie it's sometimes difficult for me to be as much of these things as I believe I should or would like to be!). Anyway... now I feel MUCH better about nursing Kat. And I get to see these ladies at least once a month. I have one girl's number and I'm going to call and see if she would like to get together. Who knows. :)

I'll be back tomorrow with at least A picture of the Dandelion Angel. I'm so excited to read what yall think of her!!! I hope MANY people will leave comments for me on the hearts today and angel tomorrow. Also, I LOVE comments on any/all of my work in my shop. I try very hard to incorporate criticisms when offered lovingly. AND I totally love suggestions and creative inspirations. Heidi has offered me quite a few of the latter and I'm still working to get some of the others out of my head!!!!! THANKS GIRL!!!