verdemama — green around the edges

Free Willy

by verdemama on July 8, 2010

Orion’s latest craze? Running around sans pants. It’s been, uh, challenging to diaper Orion for a good six months now. He thrashes and kicks and flips like a rabid wolverine. We gave up on the changing table long ago; now I let him stand up, and I try to distract him with toys or books. It works for us… most of the time.

Except now he flat-out refuses to put a diaper back on. He runs or crawls away from me, and if I chase him it becomes a game. Fun for him, insanity-inducing for moi. So I just let him run free.

Until he peed on the floor, and crazy mommy wrestled a nappy back on little wolverine.

I’m now off to fantasize about potty training. {Cue dream sequence.}

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My Top 10 iPhone Camera Apps

by verdemama on July 6, 2010

I love taking photos. I enjoy playing with my digital SLR—which I’m still learning how to properly use—but I have just as much fun with my iPhone 3G camera. I love my iPhone because it’s literally always with me, so I never miss a photo op, and I’ve amassed a collection of fun photo apps that turn regular ol’ cell phone shots into mini works of art. I’ve had lots of people ask me about the camera apps I use, so this post is dedicated to you guys.

CameraBag
One of my absolute favorite camera apps! You can take photos through the app, or you can add the effects after taking a shot, which is the way I prefer to do it. It’s also easy to save to your camera roll or email the shot directly from this app. (Surprisingly, not all camera apps offer these basic actions.)

CameraBag has 13 filters, a few of which I sample here.

Filter: Helga / Wailea Beach, Maui

Filter: Colorcross / Our baby orange tree in our backyward (Orion, 10 mos.)

Filter: Lolo / This is a real f*ckin’ dragonfly!

Filter: 1974 / Orion, 9 mos.

Best Camera
Next to CameraBag, this is my go-to app. It has 14 filters, two of which I use all the time (Jewel and Candy).

Filter: Jewel / Neighborhood flowers

Filter: Candy / Phone bank, Skagway, AK

Filter: Blue / Paia, Maui

ShakeItPhoto
Another one of my faves! Turn your shot into a Polaroid with just one click. Instant gratification at its finest.

[continue reading…]

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A (Semi-)Shameless Plea for Your Vote

by verdemama on July 5, 2010

Big thanks to everyone who’s voted in the past few months for verdemama.com on TopMommyBlogs.com. I’m not a big fan of campaigning for votes, but TMB has been such an amazing resource for reaching new readers/friends/fellow mamas and it’s recently reset its vote count (as it does every few months to keep things fair). If you don’t mind, please take a moment to vote for verdemama.com by clicking here (and then hit “click to vote,” and that’s it!). Thank you kindly.

Here’s a screen cap of my listing the last day before the reset. 509 votes in and 1,019 visits out—not bad! I’m honored you guys kept me in the top 25, especially considering there are thousands and thousands of blogs listed. Wow. Just… wow.

Sincere thanks to you.

PS. You can vote once per day, if you’re so inclined.
xo

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July 4

by verdemama on July 4, 2010

We celebrated our independence with the requisite street parties, beer, bbq, fireworks and big bouncy castles for kids. Only in America, right?

Happy Independence Day!

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Future Prom Dates

by verdemama on July 1, 2010

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Lost and Found

by verdemama on June 29, 2010

Meet Emma.

Emma was my baby before I had an actual, real-life human baby in February of 2009. I got her in 1999 when she was just a wee kitten. She lived with me during my final year of college at Kent State, then moved cross-country with me to Phoenix in 2000, then to Louisiana later that year, and finally to California in 2002. She’s been with me through 11 years of big moves and big life events, including marriage and having a baby.

Monday she went missing.

She’s an indoor/outdoor cat who roams the back yard and surrounding area as she pleases. Usually she comes in every night by 10pm, ready to snuggle, but Monday night we waited and waited… no Emma. Tuesday A.M. she was AWOL for her regular morning breakfast of succulent canned, uh… whatever that is. She NEVER misses a meal, so I officially started to worry.

Worry turned to obsession and obsession turned to heartache. I started imaging the worst. I thought about what my life would be like without her. The backyard that is teeming with lively, growing, flourishing things now looked dead and empty to me.

I made “missing cat” fliers. Fighting back tears, I walked house to house, talking to my neighbors, many for the first time ever. I went through my old photos of her. I spent the day blaming myself for her disappearance, because the last time I saw her, she was trying to get my attention by swatting at me, and I called her a brat and blew her off.

I couldn’t really blame her for wanting my attention. She’s gone from being my furry little princess to blending into the scenery ever since Orion’s arrival. See, here she is actually blending into the scenery somewhere around Orion’s seventh month.

I bet I could find 500 photos of Orion with Emma sitting somewhere in the background. She’s the Where’s Waldo of my iPhoto library. She’s not too crazy about him (read: jealous), so she keeps her distance for the most part. But there have been a few moments where she’s gotten close to him. This, for example. Orion’s probably five months or so here.

I wasn’t ready to not have her in my life anymore. She was supposed to grow old with us. I couldn’t bear not knowing where she was, what her fate was. I couldn’t stand the thought of her being scared or lonely or injured or worse. I had a long, sad day of thinking about what life would be like without her.

And then at the end of the day Tuesday? We found her. She was hiding in the neighbor’s backyard in some overgrown bushes. She hadn’t come to me when I called her. When I was searching the neighbor’s yard earlier, she didn’t make a sound.

I still haven’t figured out why she was hiding from us. I’m her favorite person in the world and usually she comes when I call her. Maybe she’s sick or injured… I’m keeping her inside the house for a while where I can keep a close eye on her. Maybe she ran away and hid from me on purpose to teach me a lesson and remind me how much she means to me.

Whatever it was, I’m so grateful to have her back and will be spoiling her silly for some time to come.

*****
If you like this blog, please keep voting for it at TopMommyBlogs.com by clicking here. I encourage you to vote often—you may vote once per day. Thank you for your continued support! xo

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Babylegs Giveaway Update

by verdemama on June 29, 2010

Have you entered the Babylegs giveaway yet? What are you waiting for? Now there’s even more good news. Verdemama.com readers will receive a 25% discount at babylegs.com until 7/18/10! Use the coupon code verdemama.

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Too Much of a Good Thing

by verdemama on June 28, 2010

The one real downside of having a backyard garden? Harvesting a bajillion pounds of a particular veggie and still having an official buttload of it left out on the vine. This is just a small (albeit gigantic) sampling of our yellow squash jackpot. Worse yet is that I don’t even really like yellow squash.

Of course I’ll be giving a lot of it away, but I’m also putting a challenge out to myself to come up with creative ways to use up all this squash, starting with these recipes. I’ll document my successes and failures here. It will be good practice for the acorn squash, zucchini potato surpluses that will soon follow.

If anyone’s got any killer yellow squash recipes out there, I’m all ears.

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Giveaway || Babylegs

by verdemama on June 27, 2010

There’s hardly anything cuter than a pair of marshmallow-y, kissable baby thighs, right? EXCEPT perhaps if those delicious drumsticks are sporting a pair of snuggly knit legwarmers.

Pretty much the sweetest thing ever, no?

Feast your eyes upon Babylegs. You didn’t know it until now, but I’m telling you, these puppies are parenting essentials. Babylegs keep your bambino’s legs warm and comfy in cool weather, protect his knees while crawling, make changing her diaper a breeze and look ridiculously adorable to boot. In addition to legwarmers, Babylegs offers baby socks and girls tights. Verdemama.com readers will receive a 25% discount at babylegs.com until 7/18/10. Use the coupon code verdemama.

And the best part? You could win a pair of Babylegs for your very own! Not only are these legwarmers totally adorbs, but they are made from organic cotton, which is better for the environment because it keeps toxic pesticides from polluting soil and waterways, and it’s healthier for baby’s delicate skin, too.

Photos courtesy of Babylegs

To enter the organic cotton Babylegs giveaway, take at least one of the following actions (or increase your odds of winning and do all three!). “Like” Babylegs on Facebook, follow @babylegs on Twitter, and/or join their online forum. Important: leave me a comment below for each action you take (i.e. after you “like” Babylegs on Facebook, leave me a comment telling me you’ve done so). I’ll accept entries until midnight (Pacific time) Monday, July 5th and THREE winners will be chosen at random July 6th.

Good luck!

UPDATE: And the winners are… Renea, Amanda R. and TJ! Congrats, ladies! I’ll be in touch.

The fine print: Babylegs provided me with a selection of legwarmers and socks for review. The opinions expressed in this write-up are completely my own. No additional compensation was received for this review.

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