Creating Kris

this is me…

so I’ve come up with a title finally for this blog… simply, “This is Kris”. Stay tuned for logo with all the “is”s lined up on the right.

in honour of finally making up my mind, I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon my friends have been on this week with all the “25 Random Things” “16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about me” and “Let’s Play 20 Questions” notes and journal posts and blog entries.

Instead of picking one of those (how to choose?) or doing them all (I must leave some mystery to my wacky personality!), I’m going to just post a new meme with a different theme – things you may *not* already know about me.

If you don’t already know the basics, I refer you to the About Kris page of this blog, or my bio on the YM Staff page or my new bio up on BlinkieMommies.com.

New meme: 18 & 1/2 Things About Me You Didn’t Know
Rules: No peeking at the last fact (the “and a half”) until you get there! When you write your own facts, they should be things your friends probably may not already know about you.

1. I was a child model until I was about 8 years old. I modeled for Sears and the Bay and did shows at the Rideau Centre and St. Laurent. I was in ad shoots in the paper and did a shoot with PM Brian Mulrooney during the ‘88 Olympics.
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new blinkies ~ proud basketball mommy

No, I’m not one myself (although Harmony is starting to be interested… and a natural at it apparently!), but one of my newslist subscribers asked for this type of blinkie and so here you have it…

Cute, eh? Those were a fun batch to make. I’m not posting all 15 of them (I totally get that some people are in the “what-the-hell-is-with-those-annoying-flashing-things-and-why-does-everyone-like-them” camp), so just click on the 1 if you’d like to see the rest.

As a side bonus, drawing the basketball in Adobe Illustrator got me some practice with using their curves, and I also noticed the “grid” feature which I’d never used before – duh! That would’ve saved me oodles of time with all those Baby Guessing Charts I do for showers! Oh well, you learn something new everyday.

So expect to see curves and grids more in upcoming blinkies and siggies and other design-y projects.

And keep your fingers crossed for Harmony, who gets to attend the next level of competition for “shooting hoops” as she won first place at the last level and gets to represent her school!

Actually given that I’m all excited for her and stuff, maybe I am a proud basketball mommy after all?

growing kids!

so, the most exciting news first: Cynthia & Josh’s baby (their first) arrived 2 weeks early! Hannah Grace was born on the 25th, 7lbs 2oz. they are not quite so “webby” connected as the rest of us, so pass along the news to other GHS grads who knew them!

So apparently the water in the band room at Gloucester High not only passed along the “syphilis” shakes (no, not really), but also the uncanny likelihood of oldest children being girls (Harmony, Aili, Eve, and now Hannah). Nina must not have been drinking enough of it I guess.

GHS Babies of 2008/2009:

In other news, both Harmony and Avery had their annual check-ups yesterday! Both are growing well, around average for height and weight although Avery is slightly tall for his age and Harmony is starting to move up on her growth curve for weight.

Here are their “stats”:

Avery @ 4yrs old: 42″ tall, about 40lbs
Harmony @ 10yrs old: 55″ tall, about 80lbs

Neither kiddo needed immunizations, although I’m still glad I brought their cards because I made sure they were all up-to-date for next year when they will switch to their new school. Which I will be able to register them for in a week (for Avery) or two (for Harmony)!!

Anyone know any good family doctors in Barrhaven that are taking new patients? I called a couple places before Christmas, but no luck, although I might try one of them back again as they indicated she *may* have room.

The reality of moving has really hit… only 3 months until the house is ready and 5 months to our tentatively-set moving day of June 27th! I packed the first box yesterday, and sealing it up with packing tape and scrawling its’ destination on it with permanent marker definitely made things sink in for me!!!

pieces of me…

so, normally when I see someone “wearing” one of my blinkies or something like that, I think “cool!” ’cause it’s neat to see how things you make can wind their way around the web.

but sometimes, it’s more like “hey! do people not know that stealing someone’s bandwidth without permission is not so nice?” even if they don’t have personal experience hosting websites (and being aware that some hosts charge you $$$ for the bandwidth you use above and beyond your account’s limits!), there are enough sites out there that caution against direct-linking.

Issue #1: Some of my breastfeeding blinkies that were previously on YM were being hot-linked a bunch of places, especially here where a whole batch were added to a forum thread. And even though BlinkieMommies now has those blinkies available for direct linking, YM never did and I don’t want to share any of YM’s bandwidth. So my smart hubby updated the .gif files to show a “this blinkie has been moved to BlinkieMommies.com” blinkie when someone is trying to direct-link there.

Issue #2: So even though it’s been 7 years since I lost angel and got a tattoo of a heart and angel wings, it’s still something moms are going through and tattoos are still a popular way to remember and honour the lives of our little angel babies. And I appreciate that moms are looking for ideas. That being said, I’d rather not see a picture of my hip “out there” on the web. So I’ve added a copyright message to the pics and hopefully next time someone would like to pass along that idea, they will link to me instead.

I don’t want to be overly controlling or anything (and stamping a © on everything in sight) but it just stings a little to work hard on something, have an idea, do something creative, make some art, etc. and have that taken away when you put it out there.

It’s like that cliché situation at the office when your co-worker steals your idea and takes credit when the boss says “that looks nice!”.