For Whom the Bell Tolls

As a hearing person, I often take for granted information that I gather about my surroundings and what is happening through sounds.  Some obvious things that come to mind include fire alarms, emergency vehicle sirens, oven timers, horns honking, etc.  However, recently, our household has had a couple of situations that have left an impression on me and what I take for granted in my environment. 

One afternoon, both kids were down for a nap.  I was busy in the kitchen and the honey was outside loading recyclables in the truck to take the recycling center. All of a sudden a blaring, honking noise filled the air.  The first thing I thought was "please don't wake the kids!"  I scurried outside to see what the commotion was about.  The headlights on the truck were flashing on and off and the horn was honking continuously.  My honey dear's bottom half was sticking out the side of the truck as he calmly organized the bins in the truck, unaware of the cacophony surrounding him.  He had the keys in his pocket and had accidentally hit the "panic" button. 

His face changed as he saw me frantically running towards him.  I tried to explain what was happening, but it was faster just to grab the keys and push the panic button again. 

 Ahhh... happy silence. 

The honey stood there, confused.  He knew something had happened, just didn't fully know what all it entailed.  Luckily, the munchkins slept through it. 

Later that same night, I put our 2-year-old to bed.  Recently, she has been more reticent about going to bed.  

Me: "Mommy and Daddy and baby brother are all going to bed now, too.  Good night, love you!" 

And then an electronic sound "doodle-ooo" (I have no idea how to represent this sound, just play along please).

2 year old: "Daddy TV!"

Yep, that electronic sound was from our man-sized LED TV.  Busted! We have had the thing for 3 years now and I have become quite familiar with the sound of the TV going on and obviously my 2-year-old is on top of that as well, but my honey had no idea. 

When he first got it, I might have told him it made the sound, but that would probably have been the only time he would have ever known and 3 years later...

no way to remember that. 

He had no idea that he had just helped to provide evidence to build a case that mommy was a big, fat, liar!

Sometimes it is the little things that I take for granted.  Tidbits of information that most of the time are inconsequential, but at the right time, they are invaluable!

Halloween Door Decorations

This year, holiday decorations are on a budget. A shoestring budget.  I have collected several little decorations over the years; things to hang on the wall, place on the mantel or other flat surfaces to collect dust and look cute.  With a toddler and 10-month-old, these are NOT practical or safe. 

Plus, I realize I need to focus more on big-impact design ideas.  But big-impact and shoestring budget seem mutually exclusive.  Enter my new love affair with Pinterest! (Follow me here) Where I found this:

My door is not painted that cool green, but with a little help from some big rolls of paper like you find at a school, I was able to create something similar.

It's not quite as sophisticated as the painted inspiration version, but I think it makes a similar big impact.  You can see this in the porch shot:

I do have a semi-protected porch and a glass door to help proctect the paper from the elements.  I am rather pleased with the big-impact, almost no-cost combination.  Now I am on the hunt for other similar decorating ideas. 

The First Dress I Ever Made and the Girl Who Refused to Wear It

I have always enjoyed dabbling in arts and crafts and doing things "homemade".  (Don't you love playing with language and making adjectives and nouns verbs?)  Once I became a mother my desire to create homemade food, games, activities, decorations, parties, clothes, toys... basically everything, has jumped into hyperdrive.  Funny how that this unrelenting need has occurred at a period of my life where I have less time than ever before.  This desire has driven me to the blogs and a whole new world of inspiration.  This blog world is a love/hate relationship.  Again, less free time in my life than ever before and yet I crave spending hours online looking at what others have created and trying it for myself.  That's just the time to puruse and add projects to my list, a list that grows exponentially while the actually doing and crossing off the list happens at a rate that imitates the growth of coral.

Despite all of this, I decided that to prove my worthiness as a mother I needed to make my daughter (who turned 2 the week after Easter) an Easter dress this year. I found this tutorial at KoJo Designs and thought that I might actually be able to pull this off.  My broad sewing knowledge involves: a basic straight line.  Yep, that's it.  And really you can translate "straight" to mean "pretty wobbly, but basically going in the right direction".  Still, my need to create handmade goodness for my daughter gave me the confidence to look past my lack of skill and take on this dress.  

For a week, I poured my heart into this thing.  A couple of nights staying up until the wee hours of the morning to finish this project after the babies were in bed.  Bless my mom's heart, she burned the midnight oil with me trying to help me figure this out and manage a very cranky 5 month old at the same time.  Gotta love a woman who supports my whims, however ridiculous.  (Don't I have a great mom as a role model?  Lucky me!)

Finally, the dress was complete.  Suprisingly, if you don't look too close, it doesn't look half-bad.  Not perfect, but not horrendous.  Not "The Christmas Story-bunny-outfit-gift" embarrasing.  Someone squinting might even say it was cute. 

Triumph!!!  Perhaps all of my efforts have been redeemed! Perhaps my standing in motherhood is saved!  If I wasn't so tired I would almost be glowing with pride.  If I'm this excited... I can't wait to see my daughter's reaction!  

Imagine my suprise when I tried to put it on her and she screamed bloody-murder and ripped the thing off her body. 

I am not exxaggerating. 

Seriously screamed as though I was trying to kill her. 

I quickly checked for pins. 

No. 

It's made out of a t-shirt it can't be scratchy. 

I tried again. 

She screamed again. 

She pulled and tugged and put up her hands and arms in some kind of karate defense move. I decided it was because I hadn't had enough sleep. 

She's almost 2, she's kind of like Kansas weather: wait 5 minutes and it will change. 

I tried to stay positive.

Easter morning arrived.  I was exhausted.  I was hopeful.  I was shot down.  She wanted nothing to do with my handmade creation.  Two years of her life and the child had never ripped off a single piece of clothing in her life, unitl now.  Until my handmade creation touched her skin and all of sudden it was like the fabric was burning her skin.  I laid in a puddle on the bed and cried. Alot.  We went to visit family and she wore pants.  I sulked with my wounded pride and my plummeting score in mommyhood.  

This is her "Easter outfit".

It turns out that moment began a 2 month period where she refused to wear all dresses, but it still stings that it was my handmade dress that started it all.  Finally in June she was willing to don the "shirt".   

The shades really make the outfit, don't you think?

 

We still couldn't call them dresses.  I will never make anything for her again.  I have learned my lesson!  Well... except for Halloween costumes... and maybe a decorated T-shirt or two...

ok, maybe I didn't learn much after all.

Jammin' Like the Old Days

My childhood was filled with fresh vegetables.  My grandparents tended a garden the size of their entire backyard and when that wasn't enough, they crept over to the the neighbors.

I love sliced cucumbers in vinegar and water.  The closest thing to heaven is eating a freshly picked tomato straight from the vine... sliced... with a little salt. 

Seriously salivating right now. 

Everything that was grown, was also canned.  I remember spending days scalding, peeling and canning tomatoes.  We used pie plates for the scraps, aprons tied around our necks and tomato juice dripping down our arms.

Someday I want to do that with my own garden and my children.  But two little ones and a new house with clay soil means it will take me awhile to get to that point.  But in the meantime, I had a hankering to try something.  With recent berry sales at the grocery stores

($.88 and $.99 per pound!),

Strawberry Freezer Jam fit the bill.

My 2-year-old helped...or tried to help.  She did quite a bit of sampling and likes to pour ingredients, but measuring isn't quite her style.  Despite my assistance penchant for doing it her way, by following the instructions on the package of Certo pectin or Ball pectin, we had 24 8-oz jars of freezer jam in a short amount of time.   

I LOVE these decorative Ball jars. So pretty.  I am definitely planning to consume lots of jam, but I also plan to use these as gifts.  These particular set of jars came with labels as well.  I have already passed out a couple for thank you gifts and will probably decorate them a bit more at Christmas times. 

This was my first attempt at this and I am rather pleased with myself.  If catastrophe struck, we may not have alot of vegetables, but we could sustain ourselves for at least a few days on Strawberry Jam. 

Now the biggest challenge will be to not eat it all myself and save some for gifts. Maybe one more biscuit tonight though. :)

Summer Splashing

I saw this on Positively Splendid first in her Summer Survival Guide, but this is originally from House of Hepworths.  I love the simplicity of this. 

 It's like reusable water balloons. 

You can't replace water balloons, but they do take hours to make and are gone in just a few minutes leaving everyone wanting for more. 
 These fabulous little creations are so simple to make and can be used again and again. 

 

I first brought these out for the 4th of July and then used them again just recently for a playdate. 
These have been a hit with little ones and adults alike. 

The men boys in my family enjoyed them as much as the little ones.  My two-year-old is happy to carry them back and forth from one bucket of water to the next over and over again.  She is too funny to watch and a little OCD at times.  :) 

I found my sponges at Dollar Tree and I am saddened that I can't find anymore of these sponges there.  I am still looking at other stores. 
I like these particular sponges in particular
1) because of their bright, fun colors and
2) because these are more like foam and are very soft. 

The cellulose sponges are more stiff and dry very hard.  I am still on the look out for more. 

I cut each sponge lengthwise into 4 pieces.  Then chose 8 fun color pieces that I liked together and tied in the middle. 
It truly is that simple!

The first time I made these I used fishing line, but the line cut into my fingers as I tried to pull them tight and despite my best efforts, some of them fell apart after a few throws. 
 So I redid them with zip ties.  Using zip ties makes them much easier to construct, but you want to be careful to cut the excess zip tie length as close to the clasp as possible.  Otherwise, there might be a sharp part when being tossed around. 

I love that we will be able to use these for
many ages and stages and when we need more or they need to be replaced it's a quick, easy project. 

Rainmaker

All over the U.S., we are experiencing horrible drought conditions.  Our yard is falling dormant and walking across it sounds like crunching leaves in the fall.  My daughter is particularly tired of being cooped up inside to avoid the intense heat.  I hadn't noticed how difficult this was to her until we went shopping the other day and she took great joy in running up and down the aisles.  I know, I'm sorry my kid is "that kid", but if you had seen the joy of freedom on her face, perhaps you would have realized, as I did, that the poor thing has needed to do that for some time now. 

We fiercely need rain.  Not a light rain, but a good solid rain that comes and goes over the course of a few days.  My flowers are all shriveling up and trying to shrink from the scorching blaze that never seems to go away, even at night time.  (I know that doesn't make sense, but when the nightly low is 84 I have decided the sun must come out again while we are sleeping to keep things so hot.) 

The dry conditions remind me of a time when my brother and I were young.  We were both still in elementary school.  It had been hot and dry for awhile and everyone was complaining we needed rain.  I don't remember who had the idea first, but we got it in our heads to do a rain dance.  We took brown grocery bags cut and painted them for costumes.  We made headdresses with feathers on them and proceeded to do a rain dance in the middle of our driveway.  I can promise you that we shamed Native American culture with whatever moves and chants we made up.  I don't think the dance lasted long.  I have a feeling the preparation of the whole thing was the real time commitment, but we did it. 

No... I mean we DID IT...we brought on the rain.  Later that evening it did, in fact, rain.  More than three drops.  Seriously, a good, solid rain.  The details of the dance and even the costumes are fuzzy.  I am sure my mom has a picture of us somewhere.  What I remember is that feeling that we DID IT!  We were so excited.  I remember feeling so POWERFUL!! We defied science and the weathermen.  Ha! 

I have been thinking of that memory often.  Not just the whimsical thought of getting out on my driveway and doing a rain dance to give my poor plants some relief, but also the sense of power and accomplishment that moment brought into my elementary-aged life.  It was like someone pouring a pitcher full of hope and moxie all over me.  In the last couple of years my life has changed drastically.  Completing a master's degree and going from a couple to a family of four has been a whirlwind of change, not always easy change either.  In that short time, I have had days where I have needed a pitcher of hope and moxie poured over me again.  New challenges await everyday.  Sometimes you may be living in a drought.  I am reminding myself, sometimes the rain will come, but sometimes you gotta make your own rain... you just gotta dance!

A Grey Hair Made Me Do It

For over a year now I have followed several blogs and loved looking into the lives of others, especially mothers, who I wanted to emulate, to be as cool, as crafty, as creative, as talented, as thrifty as each one of them.  It never dawned on me that I would ever write a blog myself.  It seemed above my reach, my life and small ideas never seemed to be good enough.  The perfectionist in me would never want to put out something this public that might show any flaws or weaknesses. 

And then one day...my darling honey and I were chatting briefly in the sunlight when he said to me, "What's that?" and then with far too much enjoyment plucked a wayward hair from my head.  Upon examing it closely my darling gleefully demonstrated that he had found a treasure: my first grey hair.  I have to admit it took my breath away and not in that "Top Gun"-theme-song-by-Berlin-way, but in the someone-hand-me-a-paperbag-and-quick-because-my-lips-are-turning-blue-from-lack-of-oxygen-way.  In his ever-so-supportive way, my darling partner in life also reminded me that with this new development it will be harder to lie about my age now.  (At this point, I have no intention of stopping this little charade.  The important part is that I buy into my own denial whether others do or not.)

Crossing this milestone in my life made me think that perhaps I could write something that others would find interesting or humorous.  But more than that, I think I am looking for a way to rage against the "dying of the light" (the light, in this case, maybe my youth and then perhaps my relevance).  So I begin this new journey of sharing my thoughts, projects and daily life in a public realm.  I hope to learn something along the way and maybe find a way to be less hypertensive should another errant grey hair find its way to my head.