Edgy Mama

Faces of Asheville is a rocking photography project created by the uber-adorable and talented Jenny Bowen. Jen needs 100 more portraits of Asheville folks–those who call AV home, for whatever deep, spiritual reason–by the end of March. So sign up and show up. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes. And you might end up in a book. I did it. zen did it. Fliss did it. I’m taking the kidlings and the Dorkie Poo next week for portraits. Join us?

I wrote a satirical piece on greening your wedding for Mountain Xpress’ green wedding guide this week. The rest of the guide has some truly good advice and lots of local contacts.

Isn’t it great that I’m finally getting paid to be a smarta**?

This week’s been about work and family, family and work. And some fun.

E-spouse’s brother, his wife, and their four-year-old twins were in town from the Boston area for the week. Adorable cousin time. Fun-family-filled evenings for all of us. Followed, of course, by diarrhea and vomiting for two out of the four kids. Another day in the life of parenting and germs.

Otherwise, I’ve continued to be obsessed with the article I’m writing for Mountain Xpress. I’m almost done, though it’s still not perfect. Articles never are, but I can still try, can’t I? Look for it on March 5.

Also, still working out glitches on the Wordpress transfer. My Blue Puzzle has been puzzling out some of the transfer problems. Another friend told me he recently transferred a blog to Wordpress, and the first 95% of the work was easy. It was the 5% of tweaking that took tons of time and energy.

Also attended the Asheville Art Museum’s opening and announcement of their upcoming smArt Speak Distinguished Artist series, featuring visits from Guerrilla Girls, Art Spigelman, and (gasp) Christo. The party was fun and brought home to me again that I’m not very cool, especially when compared to all these artistically dressed folks. I heard I was seen on the TV news running my mouth at the party.

In other news, Day in the Life of Asheville will happen again this spring, Saturday, April 19, to be exact. If you’re a fotog and like to shoot up our town, please participate. It’s always a learning experience. And lots of fun! Great meeting, guys and girls. Thanks for coming out and volunteering to help with the process. On my gallery page, you can check out my shots from DILOA’s 2007 spring and fall editions.

Happy Sunday!

I’m still struggling with Wordpress. When the file transfer took place, none of my photos transferred. So now there are all this random posts that make no sense. Like one that just says, “Biscy celebrates the season.” Whatever.

That said, I’ve discovered another fun way to waste time on-line. It’s called Good Reads. It’s a fun, easy way to create a database of books you’ve read, are reading, and plan to read. And you can keep up with reviews and recommendations from other readers. Don’t you want to become my reading buddy?

Forget flowers and romance. For me, Valentine’s Day is all about good dark chocolate.

I have no clue why chocolate is synonomous with VD for many of us, and though I Googled it madly, I could only find stats (such as: while 75% of chocolate purchases are made by women all year long, during the days before Valentine’s Day, 75% of the chocolate purchases are made by men. Over $1 billion of chocolate is purchased for Valentine’s Day).

My unconfirmed guess is that chocolate is considered an aphrodisiac, so it makes sense to give some to your lover on the day we celebrate love. Thank God the tradition isn’t to gift oysters.

Luckily, here in Asheville, we are blessed with many options for chocolate gorging. In fact, I plan to eat only chocolate on VD, supplemented, perhaps, by a fruity Belgian beer.

Here’s my diet plan for the day: breakfast: liquid truffle at French Broad Chocolate Lounge (4-ounces of spiced, melted ganache–can you say orgasmic?); lunch: The Chocolate Fetish–a box of mixed truffles; snack: spoonfuls of UlliMama’s raw chocolate; dinner: Lake Champlain Five-Star Nut & Fruit Bar (my only non-local choice); dessert: a selection of Rum and Vodka-infused chocolates from Euromarket.

What are your chocolate plans for VD?

Yes, my kids went to the dentist this morning, although it just happened that way, as the appointment was set six months ago. Going to the dentist is no big deal for my girl and high drama for my son. Which I plan to mine for a column I’m writing.

I’m looking for particularly dramatic kid-at-the-dentist stories, so if you’ve got one, spill it!

must weep. Benazir Bhutto is dead.

I’m too busy to blog, but that’s okay, because you’re all probably too busy to read. Remember that column I published last week about ways to lower holiday stress? I did all those things. And guess what? I’m still stressed.

Wish I could snuggle up and relax with these two:

Here’s my surviving the holidays column for Mountain Xpress. If you have other holiday stress reduction tips, let me know!

Alert, originally uploaded by edgygrrrl.

This is a guard llama on a sheep farm in Leicester. The farmer told me to hold tight to Biscy’s leash because if the pup got away and into the sheep pen, the llama would stomp him. The llamas have been known to kick a coyote over the fence.