Every year, the comic book community holds “Free Comic Book Day”, where you can walk into your local comic book store and get free comics. Hence the name. Anyway, I’ve loved comics since I was a teen, and am always trying to get more people to read them. Comic books aren’t all superheroes in spandex…there’s a lot of comics out there for all kinds of people. It’s great that comic book movies have done well, for the most part, since they bring in more readers, but I’d love for comics to be as popular as they were when I was younger.

Here’s some of my favorite comics that may interest you:

Y: The Last Man: Anytime someone tells me that they’re interested in comics, I usually give them my TPB of this comic (TPB = trade paper back, a compilation of several issues of a comic). What would happen to the world if all the males - human and animal, all died at the same time and women were left to rule the earth? What would you do if you realized that you were the only man left? This comic is about Yorrick, a twenty-something who searches for why all the men died, and why he is the only one left living. Along the way he has to survive in a world that has evolved into a society of women, some good, some bad, and all having an ulterior motive when they find out about Yorrick. It’s AWESOME. Excellent story by Brian K. Vaughn and art by Pia Guerra.

Fables: Imagine your childhood storybook characters living in present day New York. But they’re not the cutesy characters you remember, they’re much more real than that. Snow White and Prince Charming are divorced because he’s a womanizer. She ends up marrying The Big Bad Wolf, who really isn’t that bad, just really grumpy with a bad temper. Pinocchio is really pissed that he’s still a little boy. All the non-human characters live up at “the Farm”, because people would notice 3 little pigs walking and talking around the city. They’re all trying to live a normal life, and trying to get back to “the Homelands” where they escaped years ago after an invasion by “the Adversary”.

Shrugged: What if the angel and devils you see in movies that sit on people’s shoulders were real? What if there were beings that helped you make choices, big and small? Paper or Plastic? Left or right? Love or hate? Young teen Theo has been assigned the two sides of his conscience, Ange and Dev, who will try to sway him towards good or bad. In the end, though, their main goal is to watch out for him. Sweet art by Micah Gunnell, and story by Frank Mastromauro and the late (and incredibly awesome) Michael Turner.

So if you’re interested, head out to your local shop on May 2nd and pick up some free books - take a little time to browse the store and see if maybe something catches your interest! Check out the Free Comic Book Day website to see what free comics are going to be available. There’s some good ones there! Hugh Jackman wants you to ! (see the Wolverine trailer afterwards)

Tags: Video Gaga, Comic Book Geekdom // Comments Off

We are currently in the midst of potty training boot camp. We had actually started potty training Ben last year, but we didn’t want to push him. We got him his own little potty to use, and some really awesome cartoon themed underwear (which he calls “underpants”, thanks to the Mickey Mouse Club). He wasn’t really fond of the potty, often stating that he wanted diapers. We went a couple days last year with no pants or diapers, but I just ended up getting peed on.

This time around, Dave was around to help out, and we decided to ditch the little potty and move up to the big person toilet. Ben really enjoyed flushing it, so we thought we could use that to our advantage. Once again, we went pantless (well, not us, but Ben). I also bought some Reese’s Pieces (I know it’s wrong to give them food as a reward, but we were desperate), as well as printed out a Dora the Explorer potty chart and stickers. We followed him around the whole day, asking him every now and then if he had to potty. There were many false alarms, where he would say he had to potty, but we just ended up going to the bathroom holding him on his stepstool with no pee to be seen. Finally, we had a successful potty - though it was when my dad was watching him. He was so proud as he came down into the basement as I was working and announced, “I peed in the toilet!”

Over the next couple days he was at about 50% with peeing in the toilet…though he refused to do a #2. (Too much information? Too bad!) Finally, we made a breakthrough yesterday - we had less false alarms and he would actually pee when he announced it. He’s been delighted to get his Reese’s Pieces and put a sticker on his chart. And finally, right before bedtime, he stated to Dave that he had to poop, and agreed to go on the toilet.

You know you’re a mom when you’re ecstatic and totally psyched when your kid poops on a toilet for the first time.

We had a mini celebration where we hugged and jumped around, as Ben said, “That was easy” and agreed to do it again (riiiight!). He got a new car out of his massive car-holding truck that we had put away after Christmas. We’ll give him a new car every time he’s successful, and he’s determined to get all the cars AND the truck.

Just wanted to share!

Tags: Ben // 5 Comments »

3 years ago today, I woke up early in the morning thinking that my stomach was hurting because the pantyhose I wore for a reception the night before was too tight. I was thinking to myself, “I knew I should have gotten maternity pantyhose!”. But as the pains came again and again, I realized that my baby was making an earlier appearance - 17 days early!

After a pretty quick and simple delivery (or at least that’s what I tell myself, though I do remember that there was an issue with my epidural, but hey, I felt NOTHING), our little baby boy was born.

And now, we’ve got this talkative, crazy, manipulative, silly ball of energy that makes every day of our lives an adventure.

Happy birthday, Benjamin!

(the annual birthday video will be coming soon!)

Tags: Ben // 5 Comments »

Trying to Bloom, originally uploaded by Yano.

We had a couple of inches of snow yesterday - IN APRIL! I’m so tired for snow, spring is taking FOREVER to come this year.

I’ve got pics of easter egg hunting madness from last weekend, I’ll post them up soon.

Tags: Uncategorized // 1 Comment »

Finally updated my page layout…I’m getting better and better at vectoring (yes, I did all the grass in the header) and it’s getting to be a lot of fun, though pretty time consuming! Anyway, go ahead and use the navigation bar to change it to the new layout (go to the YWIM default or “Spring” if you want to see it).

Also, here’s my 10 on Tuesday for this week:

I’ve got a million and one “projects” that I have started and haven’t finished, or that I haven’t started at all…here’s a couple of them…

1. Scanning our wedding photos - from 6 years ago
2. Putting together a baby album for Ben - who’s turning 3
3. Organizing all my mp3’s
4. Working on my digital painting skillz
5. Getting together some photography samples for business cards
6. Finishing up my family tree
7. Burn old VCR tapes to DVD
8. Make green tea cupcakes with green tea cream cheese frosting
9. Get new glasses
10. Exercise

Tags: Weeklies, Page Update // 6 Comments »

Watching this trailer gives me giddy goosebumps…it was one of my favorite books as a kid, and this trailer feels like the movie will truly bring Max and friends to life. The music, “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire, suits the trailer perfectly. I admit, I teared up a little when watching this the first time because of its awesomeness.

Now I have to wait til October to watch!

Tags: Video Gaga // 2 Comments »

You guys may remember that I started doing the “365 Days” photo challenge earlier this year. I’ve realized that not only do I not have enough time, I also just forget to take a picture every day, and found myself “cheating” to get that 1 a day photo. So I’ve decided to end this run of my challenge, and maybe pick it up again some other time. However, I still want to try and take more pictures, which is why I participated in the first place. I’ve taken some really great photos and would never have gotten them if I hadn’t taken part.

So here’s some of my favorite pictures - you can see my whole 365 photoset here. I’ll keep on taking pictures and adding to it, but there will no longer be daily photos (not like I was uploading them daily anyway!)

Tags: Photography // 3 Comments »

We had an excellent, relaxing vacation at Whistler earlier this week. Dave was there for a work conference, and we tagged along. Initially, we didn’t have helmets, but after Natasha Richardson’s tragedy, we decided to rent some on our last day - even for Ben, who just had sledding on his agenda. Luckily for us, the hotel let us use their helmets for free.

Anyway, when I post our pictures I’ll tell you a little more about the vacation. For today’s post, I just wanted to give a little shout out to my peeps at YVR, better known as the Vancouver International Airport.

I was kind of dreading our whole airport experience, since we’d have to go through customs. I was ready for a barrage of questions, “What are you doing in Canada? Where are you staying? How are you getting there?” etc once we met with the customs agent. In the past, I’ve always had a hard time with the interrogation that happens before I’m allowed out into Canada.

Luckily for us, Ben slept through the whole 4 hour flight from Minneapolis to Vancouver…I had an assortment of snacks and toys for him to play with, just in case. Our flight came in at around 11:30am, and Dave’s parents, who were also coming along for the trip, were getting in at around 12:30 so we decided to catch some lunch while we waited. We were a little unsure if there was a food court available after we went through customs.

So when in doubt, you ask someone, rather than find out too late. We approached the customs area, where you get in line to meet a gate agent and they check your customs form and your passports and grill you on why you’re entering the country. There was a massive line of people waiting to go through. Before we got stuck in line, I decided to ask one of the workers if there was someplace to eat after customs. He told me that there was a pretty big food court on the second floor, right after customs. I thanked him, and he saw Dave and Ben with me, and said, “Hey, since you have a baby with you, why don’t you take this line” and pointed at an area to his left, an area that I didn’t even notice, since no one was going there. Turns out that it was the special lane (special for who? I don’t know) and we walked right through, passing the massive line of others waiting for customs. We walked right up to the gate agent, who processed us quickly, without too many questions (which always gets me a little flustered). We went through customs so quickly that we had to wait a bit before our luggage came out.

While waiting, I needed to use the bathroom. So once again, I asked someone who worked there where the nearest bathroom was. He motioned to the other end of the luggage area (which was pretty far), but then looked down and saw Ben (who pretty much goes wherever I go) and then said, “Since you’ve got the kid, go ahead and use the staff bathroom, right behind you.” Score! Benjamin’s my golden ticket.

After our trip, back at YVR, we were checking in our luggage. The woman checking us in was very sweet, and was playing with Ben the whole time…she even gave him his own wings. He really got a kick out of it.

The only unpleasantness we had at YVR was at security. In the US, we’re allowed to bring juice for Ben, as long as it’s outside of our bags in an unopened container. Since it was a long trip, I packed Ben a juice box. We got stopped at security, because I guess in Canada they don’t allow liquids, even for kids. Security was very nice about it, talking to Ben and asking him if he wanted to drink his juice before going through security. So I stood at the side of security, holding Ben’s hand as he drank his juice. I fought the urge to chant, “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” as he drank to hurry him up. Finally, he was finished, security clapped for him, and we were through.

While we waited before our flight, we tried to get rid of the rest of our Canadian money, buying little souvenirs and food. Right before we boarded, I had forgotten that I didn’t have juice for Ben. I looked in my pocket and all I had left was $2.10 (one of those crazy $2 coins they use out there and a dime. I’ll never get used to that!). I went to the vending machines and orange juice was $2.25. I went to Orange Julius, and juice was $2.95. Finally, I went to Starbucks, and saw they had orange juice there, but there was no price. So I asked the cashier how much their juice was, and he said, “Um, I think it’s $2.10 after tax.”

“Awesome!” I said, “That’s exactly how much money I have left” as I waved my toonie and dime. He smiled and rang me up, and the cashier next to him gave him a weird look. I looked at the register, and it read, “$3.25″. I started digging into my pockets, hoping to find more change, but the cashier just waved me off and said, “Don’t worry about it” as he reached into his pocket and put in the remainder of the money. I thanked him a lot and told him how awesome he was, and he wished me a safe trip.

So I’d like to say thank you, people at YVR, for being such an awesome representation of the Canadian people. Airports to me are usually associated with frustration and annoyances, so thank you for making the process a little less painful.

Tags: Travel, Stories // 2 Comments »

In about 5 hours we’re boarding a flight to Vancouver, then taking a 3 hour bus ride to Whistler for some snowboarding, snow tubing and all-round Canadian winter fun (though Dave’s going to attend a conference for work, but hey, he can have fun with us when he’s done). So it’s 1am, and I discovered that my fish tank filter is on the fritz, and finishing up one last load of laundry before we head out, which means that I’m probably NOT going to get much sleep tonight! I guess we could have passed on heading out to the children’s museum earlier today, but Ben always loves going to those places.

Anyway, looks like I’ll have internet access there, so I’ll try to post pictures when I can!

Tags: Quickies // Comments Off

Hollywood Studios (80/365), originally uploaded by Yano.

This is my favorite non-Ben picture from our Orlando trip (I know, you’re thinking, “Jeez, you’re still talking about your Orlando trip? Hell yeah, for I will be for a while!)

Got this picture right as the sun was going down…I love the color of the sky, and that it was dark enough to see the lighting under the hat.

Off to the store to buy some salmon for tomorrow, and maybe make some sushi rolls…

Tags: Uncategorized // 4 Comments »