When I was in the fourth grade I painted a picture of a young soldier. He wore a red coat, white pants and a black hat. Apparently, when you’re nine years old and there hasn’t been a war in your lifetime, you take style inspiration from the Revolutionary War.

The painting was good. Was I a child prodigy? No. Did my mom think I was? Yes. Every person who came over for bridge club for the next two months had to see the painting. She was proud. I understand this now because of my daughter’s second grade gourd painting. Yes, gourd. I had it custom-framed and it hangs in our living room. Shut up.

Beyond the fourth grade, I lost my artistic mojo. Sure, there was the pencil sketch of a lion in the seventh grade and the envelopes I designed in order to get pre-sale concert tickets while in college, but it didn’t go beyond that.

Until I discovered Draw Something.

This little iPhone game is making my artistic mojo creep back. I have done a good job of drawing kung fu, spaghetti and crutches. I’ve sketched Barney, gardens and an orchestra. The little soldier in the red coat must be buried in there somewhere, too!

As NOT evidenced by my son guessing this, which I drew:

Him: Stares in disbelief. Looks at me, looks back at the phone. Says, “Mom, I have no idea what this is. I think the thing at the top of the picture is a gray banana, though.” In fairness to him, gray bananas aren’t an uncommon sighting in our fruit basket.

Me: “Let me give you a hint. The thing with the red handle is a tool.”

Him: “Oh! It’s a screwdriver stabbing a gray banana!”

I will not, in fact, be quitting my day job.

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I had this great big post planned because I have been gone so long (I’m pretty sure my advertisers think my colonoscopy killed me). I typed it out at the airport in New York yesterday and thought it sounded awesome, but when I looked at it again today, it was just a giant rambling mess.

There is too much, just TOO MUCH, to say and when I try to put it all together it looks like verbal vomit on my computer screen. So, instead, I will share the very few pictures I took, and a few that I stole from my friends without asking. Without further ado, here is my last week in pictures.

I visited the 9/11 Memorial. It’s beautiful and well-designed. I ran my fingers over random names and had goosebumps the entire time.

I hung out with friends.

photo courtesy of Dresden from creatingmotherhood.com. Food courtesy of Ree from The Pioneer Woman.

photo courtesy of Angie from awholelotofnothing.net

In some photos, I appeared more greasy than others. NYC in August, holla!

photo courtesy of melisa of suburbanscrawl.com. photobomb courtesy of Jenn from mommyneedscoffee.com

And, for geeks like me, the fun and games continued in the panel rooms where I spoke at a day-long workshop on how blogging can change your life and then at a session on how to leverage Twitter and Facebook. The Twitter and Facebook panel was standing-room only and was a highlight of my short, but amazing, social media career thus far. I took a picture from the front of the room before we got started.

And, my friend Angie, snapped this picture from the audience.

That’s me on the right. This was insane fun for me. Geeks, unite!

I fulfilled my AV dreams. This is where I sat during keynotes by Martha Stewart and Katie Couric as I fed questions to the interviewers. It’s a long way from the cable access show that I worked on in high school.

Yes, I just wrote about how awesome it was to sit with the tech crew. At least I own my level of geekdom.

An impromptu dinner with the hilarious Jessica Bernturned into a quick tour of the Upper West Side and I got to see The Dakota and Lincoln Center and eat a vegan burrito in a hole-in-the-wall, which made it all the more delicious.

The gate John Lennon walked through just before he was shot.

I went to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I walked along the plaza outside of 30 Rock, strolled past the entrance of the Museum of Modern Art, and I bought an I <3 NY shirt from a street vendor. I peered into Gray’s Papaya and Carnegie Deli, but couldn’t resist the food at the Famous Halal Guys’ cart on the corner of 6th Avenue and 53rd Street.

The best falafel. Period.

I did SO much, but I didn’t scratch the surface of what NYC has to offer; yet my heart and mind are full.

And, more than anything, my feet hurt really, really bad.

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I don’t care who you are, or if your kid is just having minor surgery, this moment right here? Never gets any easier.

Tube surgery 7/17. He’s fine. We were at the hospital because of his congenital heart disease and oxygen saturations which hover around the “I don’t know if he’s turning blue or if he just ate a snow-cone” level.

This shout out goes to all of the kids who had surgery yesterday and didn’t get to come home and sleep in their own bed.

Do me a favor, hug your kids.

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It all started when I walked into my daughter’s room after midnight, on a school night, and found her looking out of her window. Our conversation went something like this:

“What the heck are you doing?”

“Sorry, Mom! I can’t sleep, so I’m taking pictures of the lightning.”

“GO TO SLEEP! You can’t get any good pictures THROUGH YOUR WINDOW SCREEN!”

I was wrong.

The next day, when she showed me the images she captured, I saw that she had taken this a few days prior.

I have a DSLR and don’t take pictures that well. I mean, you want your kids to be good at stuff, but they’re not supposed to be better than you. She’s showing me up with a point and shoot!

This sealed the deal on me needing to take a photo class. I have long said that I would love to have two other blogs….hold on, while I use these smelling salts on my husband…one for design and one for food, but my pictures aren’t even close to where they would need to be for those kind of websites.

But, my daughter is showing me that maybe I should forget the bells and whistles and just take the picture already. Using a point and shoot isn’t stopping her from capturing some great moments.

Proof? When I went to pull these two photos off her flash drive, I found this picture of Blue that my daughter took the day before we put her down.

Oh, forget it. I can’t compete with that.

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