Asher's Debut

Now that I've figured out how this video thing works, I may go a little crazy with it.

This was filmed during an afternoon nap at which time Asher should have been sleeping. Instead he decided to do this the entire time. It seriously was like the John Jacob Jingle Hymer Schmidt song where it just repeats itself over and over without some type of chorus or refrain to break up the song to get to a stopping point. He somehow figured out a way to continue singing the song until I felt sorry for the kid and ended his nap time.

Untitled from Jaylee Draney on Vimeo.

Emma's Dance Recital

This is Emma's 3rd recital she's danced in during her short little lifetime. I have the other two on tape somewhere that I'll try to share some other time. If you can believe it, the tickets were $18 each, and if you wanted to stay to watch the entirety of the recital after your child dances, you had to also purchase them a ticket. It's amazing what we'll pay to experience these things. Needless to say, Clint and I left after Emma danced.

This is a contraband video. The only personal filming a parent could do was during the dress rehearsal, and stupid me didn't get the camera set up before she came on, so instead of enjoying watching Emma practice her dance, I was fuming the whole time that I would have to pay $30 for the DVD, which I would pay in a heartbeat to capture the short two minutes of Emma's stardom on record. I eventually decided to tape it myself during the actual recital, which is forbidden because, obviously, they want you to purchase their professional DVD. Had Emma been in more dances, I may have done that, but as it was I had already spent $550 on dance lessons, $50 on her costume, and $36 on recital tickets, which works out in the end to $318 a minute, or $5.30 a second during her 2 minute long performance. I did my best to stick it to the man.

I am thrilled with how well she did, and so proud she is able to dance in front of hundreds of people without peeing her leotard. Every year without fail, I'm a bundle of nerves leading up to her performance, and every year after her performance, I tell myself that was the last season of dance lessons. Three years later she's still going strong.

Untitled from Jaylee Draney on Vimeo.

Don't you hate it when you have to call the dentist for your daughter to make an appointment, which you should have done weeks ago but kept forgetting, and you kick yourself every night before you go to bed that you accomplished quite a bit during the day, except you can't take care of this one simple task, and you vow that "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I will call the dentist" and then you forget again because life gets in the way and you have to drive to Target AGAIN to return yet another impulse item, and finally on the way home from running errands you repeat in your mind "call the dentist, call the dentist", and when you get home at 12:45, before you do anything else, you run into the house, look up the number, grab the phone and dial? And don't you hate it that between the hours of 12:30 and 1:30 Monday through Thursday they're out to lunch? And you know that it will be another 2 weeks before you get around to calling again and by that time every last one of your kid's teeth will have fallen out.

I Should Own Stock in Behr

My outlet for expression has deviated recently into creating perfect paint lines.





I hate painting. I hate it because it's so obvious when it's not perfect. I imagine someone sitting in my bathroom relieving themselves, looking at the wall in front of them, and when it's a particularly long visit, they may find themselves trailing their line of vision along the top of the baseboards, up the door frame, around the ceiling, etc., silently taking inventory of all the paint blobs that seeped over their designated space. I hate it because I have no other handy talent I can contribute towards the continuing black hole of home improvement our house requires. I don't trust myself to do anything else, so with clenched teeth and paintbrush in hand, I tape and paint and re-tape and repaint, and my day's mood begins to depend on whether a perfect line emerges after I so gently peel off the tape at a perfect 90 degree angle.




If you find me laying on the bathroom floor with my eyes gouged out by a paintbrush, make sure you get a good look at my smokin paint edges before you call for the coroner.