this is fantastic

I usually ignore/avoid things passed virally around the web (especially facebook).  There are only a few of them that are good enough to watch an share.

I had seen this one around for a while, but didn’t want to waste my time.

I’m glad I watched it.  Because this is what I believe about higher education (and education in general).  Going to school is not just about knowledge…it’s about learning how to be with/work with/play with/interact with/understand other people that aren’t like you.  It’s a skill that is learned best through experience.

David Foster Wallace says it brilliantly.

THIS IS WATER – By David Foster Wallace from The Glossary on Vimeo.

Blessings

Two weeks ago, the hubs and I were watching The Real Housewives of Orange County (feel free to judge. we love that show for its ridiculousness and hilarity and stupidity and its not-being-able-to-turn-away-from-a-train-crash quality).

There’s a new housewife, Lydia. She was introducing herself on the show and, as most new housewives do, she was trying to make herself look more “real” than her cohorts. She was talking about her family money and how they “live within their means” and how her parents taught her that she was no “different than anybody else” and how they were “blessed”.

I could expound on the “differences” between my upbringing and hers. I can promise that they were different. I could also talk about how Joe Kennedy (the father of JFK and Bobby Kennedy and seven other kids) taught his kids that they WERE different. They were lucky because they had money. They had opportunities that others didn’t…that A LOT of others didn’t. He taught them that it was their responsibility to make their life’s work about others. To work hard for people who were less fortunate than they. But this story is for a different day.

What I want to talk about is what I heard on the radio the next morning. I was listening to NPR in the morning…it was a Friday. On Fridays Morning Edition picks a story from StoryCorps to share on the air.

This was the Friday after the Boston Marathon bombing. This was also the Friday after the explosions in West, Texas. Morning Edition chose to share a story told by a father, who happened to be a leg amputee, to his daughter. The father, Jack, explained that when his daughter was 2 months old, his leg was crushed by a forklift at work and had to be amputated. He talked about how scared he was as a new father to this baby. How was he going to provide for her? How was he going to be a good father? His daughter then starts to describe her father as she was growing up. She said that he was always doing good things for other people and never wanted recognition for it. Her father responded with this statement:

“You know, you are truly blessed when God gives you the opportunity to help someone else,” Jack says. “That’s our purpose in life.”

I had a moment of clarity after I heard that.  He is completely correct.  I realized the thing that bothered me the most about what housewife Lydia said was not that she had a ton of money growing up (I don’t begrudge her that at all) but it was that by her saying that she was “blessed” because they had money meant that others weren’t “blessed” because they didn’t have money.   I could take that in a bunch of different directions…but it led me here:

What Jack, from StoryCorps, said really made me think about all those people who ran TOWARD the blast after it happened…to help others.  I asked myself if I would have been able to do that.  Would I have been able to react for others and not for myself?  And then I started thinking about my kids and what I want to teach them.  No matter how much I want to protect my children from any pain, as any parent would, I want to teach them to be helpers.  I want to teach them that they are lucky and blessed to be able to help others.  Because I do believe that is our purpose in life.

Parenthood never fails to teach me…even though I may not be super interested in learning right at that moment.  I feel I’m always walking the tightrope between failing and succeeding.  As long as I have just a few more successes than failures I feel pretty good.  But I do think I would feel most successful as a parent if my kids end up happy, know themselves well, and are helpers.

the perfect client

Internet….I need to spread some love.

This love is for somebody who has really believed in me and my abilities for a while now.

I call her the perfect client. Her name is Nicole and you can get to know her at her blog Mr. & Mrs. Hines.

I really just wanted to throw a shout out her direction because she is the client that contacts me with ideas and lets me run with them and is NOT afraid to give me her opinion always in a respectful way.

We started working together for her wedding and I think we developed some pretty awesome wedding paper if I do say so myself. The flower was based off of a swing that her then boyfriend bought her and proposed to her while she was sitting on it.

 

Since her wedding, Nicole has come to me with all sorts of ideas and projects. We’ve done baby shower invitations and well wishes for baby. My favorite we’ve done so far is this awesome construction themed well wishes. The inspiration was taken from the bedding and room decorations for Baby Hardee. So fun!

I’m telling you, to have a client who is so supportive of me and who, most awesomely, recommends me whenever she has the chance, I could not be more thankful.

Have a happy Friday and a great weekend!

I don’t know if you know this or not….but my child, Win, loves to dance. He’s got it in his heart. And that’s pretty fantastic (takes after his mama, see below).

I just realized I look like a pregnant zombie dancer in that picture…unintentional. I thought I was a zombie then with the insomnia, but I had NO IDEA what I was in for.

I wish I had other pictures of me dancing…but that all happened before the digital world came to the tiny town of Kinston, North Carolina. Instead I have a few pictures of me dancing while pregnant with twins…It’s different. I’ll say that.

Anyway, we have recently discovered that Win loves to dance. And not only that, he loves to dance to Led Zeppelin.

Here he is getting his groove on (it’s got that polaroid look cause I thought it was appropriate…you know, with Zeppelin and all):

And now…on to the show you’ve all been waiting for (I promise)

Win gets the led out from Heather Perry on Vimeo.

We’re 1!!

Yeppers…the boys are 1 (and almost 4 weeks…so I’m a little late with this post).

Their birthday (and all the days after that) was fantastic. They slept until 6:40!!!! It was their present for us…and it was fabulous. We went to our favorite restaurant and they had their first dessert: yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting.

Now, I’m going to try to embed the video I made (of course I made one almost a month late). We’ll see how it goes. Sorry if you see a bunch of code after. I’m going to blame it on my lack of coding skill.

first birthday from Heather Perry on Vimeo.

videos

So…here is the first video from the new camera.

It’s about our Christmas.  But I feel like it’s been just enough time that you’re not going to vomit from overexposure to red and green and you might actually laugh at the little people that are our children.

Please excuse the unmentionables.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/58249654″>Christmas 2012</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user15122983″>Heather Perry</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Beach time

Yesterday we took the boys to the beach for the first time…officially.

You might be asking yourself why is it that parents who live, literally, a 5 minute walk to the beach haven’t taken their twins to the beach yet.

Well, you can see their first trip here.  It wasn’t much of a trip…they were tiny and the walk was probably less than 5 minutes.

One of the challenges that we’ve had with the twin babes was conjuring up enough energy/courage/insanity to take them somewhere…anywhere.  It’s a lot of work and most of the time doesn’t seem worth it.  So we haven’t gone a lot of places with the boys.

This summer, some or all of us were mostly ill at one point or another and the boys weren’t old enough to wear sunscreen and we didn’t have an umbrella and there is a HUGE set of stairs to get down to the beach.  I kept having these nightmares of me walking down the stairs behind my husband, each of us carrying a young wiggly babe in one arm and whatever else we could carry in the other.  In the nightmare, I trip and bring the entire family down with me.

So….we just haven’t been.

But the weather here has been SO beautiful and we didn’t need an umbrella or any of that non-sense.

And it was awesome!

We were nervous about the boys being afraid of the loud roar of the ocean and not wanting to touch the sand. We didn’t have to worry about the sand thing…in just a few minutes they were both eating away (it was disgusting).

The beach is a GREAT place to practice walking. Holt walked holding on to me from our blanket almost all the way to the ocean (about 50 feet). He’s really getting the hang of it (no pictures due to the whole two babies eating sand vs. two adults).

YUM!

We only stayed for 20 minutes or so, but it was a HUGE success. I can’t wait for the summer when we’ll be spending much more time there. Considering the last two summers for us were spent barely outside at all (me being pregnant two summers ago and the summer of illness last summer), we are ready for a summer of outside (in the shade of course…those boys got my sensitive skin. Sorry boys).

new year new house

Well…not exactly.  I mean…not at all.  But it feels “new” if new means that it feels like it’s not ours anymore.  Our house has been overrun and stolen from us…by stuff.

Let me explain.

I knew kids accumulated stuff (I mean I accumulate a lot of stuff!).  But I am flabbergasted by how much STUFF our twins have accumulated in their oh-so-short lives.  It’s amazing.  We don’t have two of everything…but we do have two of A LOT  of stuff.  And the thing is, we don’t have tons of room in our house.  We live in a townhouse in a neighborhood that is meant for vacationers so there isn’t tons of storage…no garage, no accessible attic, a small storage room outside that includes the storage of our water heater.  (Don’t get me wrong…I LOVE where we live.  We are a 1 minute walk from the sound (the body of water that separates our island from the mainland) and a 5 minute walk to the ocean…we’ve got it pretty great in terms of location, see below…so I really should shut my mouth…I know).

So we have had to come up with some very creative storage methods in our house and we are STILL running out of space.  We’ve got closet organizers in all of our closets.  We bought a sofa table with tons of storage.  We try to hide the kids’ toys behind our couch and on the shelf under a coffee table so our house doesn’t look a complete wreck too cluttered.

The kids got presents for Christmas…of course they did.

But by the time we had gone to multiple family gatherings and they had received just one gift from each family member (so that’s one gift from a whole lot of aunts and uncles and grandparents…times two) I had decided that we were only going to give them our one big gift instead of the big gift and some other small stuff we had picked up.

They were awesome gifts those big ones: two stride and ride lions that look and sound hilarious.

Thankfully the kids loved them.  And, also thankfully, they didn’t miss those gifts they didn’t remember getting.

This is Win holding what is actually a cat toy. I believe it was a McDonald’s toy that someone gave to my husband a long time ago because that person thought that my husband looked like Bert…and now it’s a cat toy that my kids love to play with.

And yes…on Christmas morning I dressed my identical twin boys exactly alike. But, I mean, did you see those super cute Santa’s helper sleepers? No…you didn’t? Don’t worry, I’ve got some other good shots.

But…I digress.  I know I’m sounding a little ungrateful right now. Please know that I adore all of our family and I adore that they love our kids so much to give them presents. I really do. I know we and our kids are super lucky because we really want for nothing. I think I’m just in shock a bit. I think I’m just amazed at how much space all those toys take up…and how big of a mess our two 11 month olds can make.

After Christmas, as in THE DAY after Christmas, I packed up all our Christmas decorations.  I also took half of the boys’ toys and put them away in their closet to get out in a few weeks (I think I’m going to rotate toys every other week or so so they seem new and exciting…it’s so great when your kids live in the ever present now).  I couldn’t stand it anymore.  All I could see was clutter around the house.  It was driving me crazy.  And if you ask my mother or my husband they will tell you how surprising this is.  I am not a cleaner…as in…I secretly like a mess.  At least, I used to.  Not anymore.

The problem is…I’ve never been a cleaner, so this is new territory for me.  I’m not quite sure how to do it.  I know, right now you’re thinking, “seriously?  it’s just cleaning…not rocket science”.  But I’ve never been good at developing a system.

In the new year, I really want to make some changes: purge, organize, clean, keep clean.

I’m excited about it.

I’ve found a few places to help me out.  I’m sure you’ve seen all those lovely pins that display some awesome organization.  The thing I DON’T want to do is spend a lot of money to organize…that seems silly to me.

This is possible the BEST POST I have ever read about cleaning.  It’s all about using what little time you have in your day, throughout the day, to tidy and clean.  A Girl and a Glue Gun is one of my favorite blogs and she really took it with this post.  It’s long and thorough and exactly what I need to start developing a system.

Here are some nice images/sites I’ve pinned recently about the topic.

Source: myhomeideas.com via Heather on Pinterest

 

 

This is a great idea for a small craft area…maybe even on the inside of a door?

Source: tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com via May on Pinterest

 

 

I just love this tiny wall storage. It doesn’t stick out very much…again would be nice on the back a door.

Source: flickr.com via Nomi on Pinterest

 

 

Could I be interested in any more craft spaces right now? You can tell I have a ton of crafts stuffed somewhere in the back of a closet that are screaming to get out and replace all the junk books crap ugh…whatevers on my shelves.

For now…I must purge some things to make room for that stuff stuffed in closets. Hopefully, I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime…here is our super sweet Christmas picture of the boys and our Christmas Card.

CHEERS

So here we are in a new year and I’m super excited.

Source: desdemventana.blogspot.com via Kellie on Pinterest

 

Here’s to my boys turning 1…going places other than work and the doctor…walking and talking…snuggles and books and library time…hilarity…hopefully better organization in our house…300 miles run by me (but not at one time)…happiness…more blogging…gratefulness…a new couch…beach time…pool time…family time…more photography and graphic design…maybe yoga or a dance class???…quiet time and loud time…aquariums…weddings…And very soon…our very first Perry Christmas video.

Happy January Second!

christmas time

this is not actually a post about Christmas. This is a post using the holidays as an excuse as to why I haven’t been here in a while (and for the photo bomb). But to be honest…I like photo bombs.

What can I say? I’m a visual person.

So, here they are at a sweet 9 months.

This might be my favorite picture of all time.

This weekend we’re going to see Santa! Wish us luck! Next week….mama’s getting a new camera. Watch out for video bombs!