Suburban Composition

I’m Back

2011-04-26T15:31:00.001-07:00

I’m back to blogging, only it won’t be here. Check me out over on Accepting Abnormal.

September Swap

2010-09-27T06:58:00.001-07:00

This month I did the swap at HSBA. I’m behind in posting pictures because, well I’m behind in everything. I haven’t posted in awhile because I’m behind in the things I want to post about! I suppose that is just life sometimes. My partner was the lovely gal from Our New Life. My package arrived while I was out of town last week, and it was nice to decompress and open it when I got home.

My package included quite a few scrapbook/papercraft goodies, a necklace, some shaped stickies, and a decorated notebook. Thanks C!!

I have the best hubby

2010-09-10T06:24:00.001-07:00

If you don’t believe me, just look at this great dinner he cooked:

More amazingly, that great looking “Chicken Cheese steak” is completely meat and dairy free!!! It’s easy to be veggie in this house!

I Love Pattern Blocks

2010-09-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

To see it go from this:

To This:

And back to this again:

Lovely.

Do you love pattern blocks as much as I do? Does your kid make designs like this? Or just stack them on top of each other like mine currently does?

The Family Store

2010-09-01T06:53:00.001-07:00

I’ve said for years, and I mean years before I had a kid and everything, that we’d utilize a credit system instead of allowance. I almost caved and did allowance, but reminded of the family store (it’s popped up all over the mom web recently hasn’t it?) and decided to stick with my original plan. So thanks to every who posted about a family store, and made me stick with my plan. :)

I haven’t worked out all the details yet but the first inventory items have been purchased.

$20 for a backpack, lunch box, AND stainless steel water bottle. How could I pass that up??? I couldn’t, that’s how!

More details about how family store to come. In the meantime, tell me, do you have a family store? Or give allowance? What is your rewards system?

House or Houzz

2010-08-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

Have you guys seen Houzz? If you like interiors and architecture you’ll LOVE it! It like a flickr for homes only, and you can save everything to your personal “idea book.” There are also set idea books to look at, that other users have created. Anything from “fabric ottomans” to “Autumn.”

I could browse for hours!

Here are a few pics I’ve added to my idea book:

LOVE this pantry!!!!

This is SO classic and cute! Makes me want to sit down and do homework! Or write a letter.

I love the color here, but mine would be less likely to match.

This is such a nice bedroom! I love the dark wall.

So, if you don’t already use it, and love design like I do, check out Houzz. Boy is it fun! And after you do, let me know how you like it :)

Decisions, Decisions

2010-08-22T09:45:00.001-07:00

Well, I fixed it, but now i don’t like how my blog looks. It’s bland and boring and needs a better header, and …..

It turns out that somehow the HTML for the background I had was in a gadget box that was hidden until I changed the lay-out. Weird huh? I changed the layout and a second copyright notice box appeared, and in that box the HTML I needed.

Hopefully a blog design I like will have appeared by tonight. Hopefully.

I broke it!

2010-08-22T09:08:00.001-07:00

I had this bright idea to start changing my blog colors to reflect the seasons and holidays, and decided to play around with it today. A relaxing Sunday activity.

The only problem? It’s NOT relaxing! I applied a free background ages ago and now I can’t figure out how to get rid of it! AND I’ve managed to make only part of my blog change which makes it look all wonky.

I broke it. I broke my blog. Can anyone tell me how to fix it???

I’ve looked for the html for my background EVERYwhere. I can’t find it to remove my background.

I feel like a blog failure. So much for being a better blogger. :(

My Newest

2010-08-21T16:34:00.001-07:00

A doll store near me is closing, and I managed to get there just in time. They have only 4 more days. I’ve only been there once and left somewhat disappointed really. They focus almost entirely on doll baby types dolls that you display in every corner in cribs, cradles, rocking chairs, and such to freak out anyone walking through your house. The dolls that are cute but really are just dust collectors. I went in figuring I’d stock up on generic sizes of doll undies, socks, shoes, and tights.

A doll I looked at almost 2 years ago was still there, but I have already bought a similar doll anyway, and she was way overpriced. I guess the fact that a doll will sit in the store for 2 years shows why the store was closing.

I DID get a few shoes, socks, and undies (though apparently I dropped a pair of undies while walking around because only one was in my bag) BUT I also got another doll. I spotted this dear in the 80% off room, and at first couldn’t decide what to make of her. (Or him, I think it could pull off being a him)

I couldn’t decide if I thought she was quite weird and creepy looking or adorably cute. I decided to get her because I didn’t want to NOT get her and regret it. I can always sell her if I decide she’s not for me.

She isn’t really as red as in the photos. She IS however not made of the thickest most amazing plastic in the world, so the setting sun out the window made her glow like a lightening bug. Her hair is molded in and not painted, and appears to have never been painted. Her eyes are NOT painted but are actually inset plastic chips. No maker marks. But she is growing on me. The more I see her the more I like her. Or him.

So how many dolls does this make for me? Ummm…. Let’s not discuss it. Okay? Okay.

Jo Totes

2010-08-20T13:39:00.001-07:00

I’ve seen these on a few blogs and while I try not to want physical things these camera bags make me fail miserably. They look like cute designer purses, but inside have room for your camera and lenses, plus space for purse essentials.

I’m so in love with this one:

You can find more info on this one (or browse other styles) here.

Have you seen these? What are your thoughts?

Glasses

2010-08-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

Since the end of June I’ve been having issues with migraines. Or I should say I was, because my latest prevention medicine seems to have solved the problem. After a month on a low dose medicine I was still having an issue so Dr follow-up sent me off with a higher dose of prevention medicine and a list of things to do to see if they affected the headaches.

One thing was to get my eyes checked. I’ve only had my eyes checked once, and I think i was in 5th grade, maybe it was even younger then that. I’ve always been able to see more then anyone around me, so we just never worried about getting it done.

Well it turns out I CAN see more, but have a slight strain to do so. So I got a very mild prescription of glasses. My prescription amount is literally .25 or something.

I got two pairs of frames (Hello America’s Best!) but only one pair have come in so far. I feel like my glasses complete my face. Without them I feel pretty goofy looking, but with them I’d almost consider myself attractive.

Few people who know me have seen my glasses so far. For those that haven’t, allow me to reveal my new look.

Embarassing Pictures

2010-08-17T13:04:00.001-07:00

Recently I read an articles about blogging that said if you want to blog about your children there are certain rules to follow. Some of them were safety issues (not using obvious real names or giving away to much information,) some made it clear that they had no idea what mommy blogging is about, and one rule was to never ever share embarrassing pictures of your children.

Well…. forget that!!!!

Blu dressed himself. Entirely backwards and he forgot pants!

My New Thing

2010-08-14T17:20:00.001-07:00

Hooping!!

Its hula hoop for grown ups and it’s awesome! I’m making a hoop tomorrow. Hopefully. It’ll be awhile before I share any video of myself, but here’s some I’ve watched that can introduce you to the concept.

I’ve watched hooping to ALL kinds of music, drums, metal, oldies, and more.

Now, don’t YOU want to hoop??

Blogging- a Vicious Circle

2010-08-07T15:26:00.001-07:00

It has occurred to me that blogging is a vicious cycle. “But blogging is fun” you say. “There’s nothing vicious about it,” You declare. How can it possibly be a vicious circle?

This is how blogging works for me:

I blog regularly, I read other blogs daily, I take photos for my blog, I craft for my blog, I post, I share, I read.

Then I start to pressure myself. “How comes THEIR house is so nice and well decorated, and mine isn’t? They don’t have any amazing trick. Why am I so messy?” “How do they get so much time to craft but I barely get in my craft room? They have kids too! And they only show their good crafts certainly, so they have enough time to make crappy ones too that they never show!” And then I spiral into this self-hatred and beat myself up.

SO then I take time off from blogging. I stop reading tons of blogs, I barely read any blogs. Usually my blogging break leads to less writing for my own blog.

Which leads to not taking pictures for my blog, not writing, no crafting to show, no inspiration from other blogs to make me want to craft. I step almost completely out of the blogging world, and in turn out of the crafting world.

THEN I beat myself up. I am angry that I haven’t even been in my craft room. I am frustrated to not have a single creative idea to speak of. I am furious with myself for not writing, for not sharing that despite his speech issue Blu is learning to do The Itsy Bitsy Spider. For not sharing the amazing cupcakes I made. For letting memories and ideas die instead of blogging, instead of embracing them, instead of sharing them. I get truly depressed when I don’t craft, when I don’t write.

I HAVE to make stuff, it’s something I discovered many years ago. I truly HAVE to make things, or I spiral into a deep dark place, I get obsessed with things. Homeschooling, paint colors for the house (though we probably won’t paint for months.) My brain has nothing to focus on and so I focus on everything and nothing all at once. It’s not pretty. I am at my absolutely worst when crafting is not a part of my life.

So then I start blogging again, first by reading, then taking pictures, getting ideas of what to write about. And then the cycle starts all over again.

When does the cycle stop? Is it as simple as saying I will make it stop?

Photography

2010-07-13T16:15:00.001-07:00

It occurred to me that I haven’t posted recently, or ever really, my photography. I wanted to share a few favorite shots with you.

A Street in Philadelphia.

Some roses Blu gave me. (Isn’t he sweet!?!?!)

Some various flowers in the areas by my house.

My favorite scene in the world, the stairs at my grandmother’s house.

Doesn’t this firework shot look like a daffodil??

More to come. I take hundreds of pictures a month. Yeah, seriously.

Oh and by the way, the third rose picture makes a wonderful computer desktop background. :)

Fundraisers

2010-07-12T07:37:00.001-07:00

The last few weekends, weekends when the weather allowed, we noticed something. (My family and I) At a particular area nearby, a well used intersection, there have been some young boys, early teens, doing a fundraiser. First let me say these boys will NEVER get any of my money, and secondly let me tell you why.

If you see this boys they are wearing matching basketball jerseys. They are holding blue poster board signs. What do the signs say?

“Carwash, Help us raise Funds.” NO.

“Fundraiser please buy a …” NO.

The perfectly able bodied boys are standing at the intersection with signs that say

“Fundraiser, help us get money to go to nationals.” which really translates to “Give us money cause we want to go, but we don’t want to do anything to earn it.” Because I’m sorry, but standing in the heat in not sufficient to deserve money for a fundraiser. Not if you are able bodied young people.

These boys are not actively doing a fundraiser. They are actively standing on a street corner and begging.

Maybe I’m just over thinking the situation, but I can’t help but wonder how this is an acceptable thing. Is it because kids today are spoiled and are given everything they want? Is it because athletes are spoiled and given everything they want? Or are these boys just lazy?

Why aren’t these boys doing a carwash? A Bake sale? Selling lollipops, cookie dough, frozen pizza, doughnuts, fruit, or any of the other million fundraiser sales programs out there today? Heck, if they play basketball, why don’t they put on a fundraiser basketball game!?!?

Why exactly should I give my money to able bodied young men who are doing nothing but standing on a corner and asking for it? Is the fact that they are standing there a sign of our society? Or just a sign that they need to get their act together?

What are your thoughts? Am I just being mean?

Okay okay, I’m Back

2010-06-27T13:03:00.001-07:00

Hey, that was several days, that was about as dedicated as I get! But seriously, thank you to everyone who left comments, emailed, talked to me on my way into church, and said “I read your blog, I just don’t comment.” I appreciate it. It made a series of thoughts go through my head.

As I read those comments or was told that in person I thought “I must have really made it come across that I was stopping because no one reads it. It isn’t about how many people read it.” Which lead me to realize, it ISN’T about how many people read it. These are my memories with my kid, with my family. These are my perspectives, my ideas, my dreams, my ambitions. This is my journal. The fact that people read it, if anyone reads it, is a bonus not a necessity.

WHICH lead to further thought, if it’s not about how many people read it, and it is my journal then why am I stopping? My main reason for stopping was to stop focusing on this and do other things to change my life. To conquer my messy house, to become the person I want to be, to decide who that person is. And while it may be a long journey there is one thing I know, and have always known, the person I want to be keeps a journal.

So if it doesn’t matter who reads it, and the person I want to be keeps a journal, then why stop my journal to become the person I want to be? (Does that even make any sense?) Shouldn’t I keep a journal of life as I grow and become the person I want to be?

And with that strange, possibly nonsensical, possibly deep thought, I announce my return to blogging. Thanks for bearing with me for several days while I intended to not write anymore. :)

A Temporary Goodbye

2010-06-22T12:41:00.001-07:00

I’ve decided to take a leave of absence from the blog for awhile. for a variety of reasons really. One being that it begins to take an emotional toll to work on a blog and feel as though no one reads it. My posts almost never get a comment, and it produces a real “why bother doing this?” feeling. And that feeling just makes me think of all the other things I could be doing instead. I have a craft room in my house that is constantly trashed, not a little dirty, TRASHED! Because I never get anytime in there, to clean or to make stuff, and the time I get in there I make stuff and make a bigger mess instead of cleaning it up.

I’m also trying to make some changes in my life, in my house, and I don’t want that constant lingering thought in the back of my head saying “You really need to write a blog post. You haven’t in forever.” I’m trying to learn to better manage my time, my household, and my ADD, and I want to put the blog on the back burner until I can fit it into my day without making sacrifices. Honestly, my husband and I argue almost daily over how messy the house is, and instead of cleaning I more then once have written a blog post. Seriously. It may not seem like I post very much, but most of my posts are written in times when I REALLY should be doing something else.

So while I get other projects together, while I get myself together, while I get my house together, and even get my life together, I’d like to bid you a temporary farewell. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but I’ll be back! To those who have read, and who post comments sometimes, thanks!

Secret Confession

2010-06-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

Want to hear a REALLY good secret confession? I'm talking SO good you might die of laughter, I'm going to lose any street cred I might have (but I'm okay with that, because I doubt I have any)

Okay, ready?? Here goes:

I still like Hanson. Yeah that's what I said, Hanson. Remember these guys?
I still bop to "MMMBop," I still sing "Weird" to myself. They sit proudly next to much more popular artists on my iPod. And I still choose to listen to just their album and not even in a shuffle.

Now, it's your turn! Tell me a deep dark secret confession about yourself!!! Or post one on your blog and copy a link into the comments. Come on, Don't make me be the only one that does this!!!! Are you chicken!?!?! I double DOG DARE you!!

(Sorry, apparently listening and talking about Hanson reverted me to 13 again.)

The Perfect Iced Coffee

2010-06-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve been drinking coffee for more then half of my life. Really. I’ve mastered the perfect cup, and while that isn’t much to brag about for regular hot coffee I’m VERY proud of my iced coffee. This post is to make a cupful, but I have done whole pitchers in the same way!

Some of the main things you will need are a large cup, creamer, sugar, and a coffee cup. You can also use coffee fresh from the pot. I have a Tassimo I use when making it by the cup, but coffee poured from a regular coffee maker into the big cup work just as well. We don’t drink dairy, so my creamer is Silk soy creamer. If you are avoiding dairy this is the BEST! I tried a few others and the Silk just knocked them out of the water. I also have a few sweetener packets instead of sugar. Use sugar or sweetener to taste.

Here’s the most important part:

That my dear is coffee ice cubes. They are VERY important. An iced coffee made with regular ice quickly tastes watered down and weak. I keep a ice cube tray in my freezer, then any time I have a bit of coffee left in the pot I fill as many cubes as I can. You can see it looks brown in empty cube holes, but it rinses clean with no staining.

Put some coffee cubes in the big cup. I use anywhere from 3 to 5, depending on exactly how hot it is, and how fresh and hot my coffee is. Very hot coffee use more, coffee already cooled use less.

Fill the cup about halfway with creamer. You can use more or less, but it will affect how frothy and creamy your drink is. If your coffee is hot go ahead and toss the sugar or sweetener right on top of the ice. The heat before you stir will mix it in. If your coffee is cooling heat it just enough to melt the sweetener and mix the sweetener and coffee in a coffee cup.

Add coffee. I use a regular sized cup, I think the Tassimo makes about 11 ounces? Really you just want to fill it almost to the brim.

Stir and enjoy!

If you make this I’d LOVE to hear what you think!! Go ahead and leave me a comment.

The Lemonade Stand

2010-06-13T18:11:00.001-07:00

I haven’t posted for awhile because after my last post I’ve been trying to get it together. I prayed, again, asking for a sign of what to do with my life, where to go from here. And my sign was given. Then I was getting myself together for the thing that was chosen, gathering ideas and deciding how to move forward. How about short story today, long story tomorrow?

To make it short I’ve decided to focus on kids/homeschool/etc and leave crafts/art/design as a hobby. Remember the homeschool magazine I mentioned? Well it is moving forward starting now. I’ve asked a friend who used to work in editing to help me, and also have another friend willing to do anything I need. I am at the VERY beginning, and other then having an idea and some basic info I am not even sure how to go from here. BUT I want to spread the word, I want to get other people excited about the magazine.

So I created a separate blog for the magazine, using the proposed magazine title “The Lemonade Stand.” If you are interested in the magazine, please check out the blog for it here. There is a bit more information as well as links to ask questions about it by formspring or by email.

Please tell your friends. Send them to The Lemonade Stand’s blog. The more interest in the magazine the better it will be!

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog posts. I have posts coming up with the long version of this story, how to make the perfect iced coffee, and more!

Daily Battles

2010-06-02T15:56:00.001-07:00

Every day I go through two mental/emotional battles. One is fighting adult A.D.D to actually conquer things that need to be done (I often fail.) Battling the time sucks to actual manage the to-do list. The other is even harder than that. I have two constant battles about what I want to do with my life. WHO do I want to be?

The choices?

The Artist/Designer

The Teacher

I’m well beyond the age where people tend to decide what they want to do with their lives. My husband and I are trying to actually create more of an income using what I want to do, an at-home-career besides the regular at home stuff. But the biggest issue is that before we can move forward I have to know what I actually want to do. And every day I have new ideas. (Remember battle one was battling A.D.D?) Today my ideas included items I’d put in our artsy shop AND the idea to start a children’s library. I have a lot of ideas, and they are always under one category or the other.

If you were to ask me what ONE thing would I want to do with my life I would quickly reply “make art and design my life.” To have a name for myself, to dedicate myself, write craft books, design fabrics, to actually have blog readers that look at my blog for awesome crafty inspiration. BUT really, I’m fairly sure that is a pipe dream, and I’m fairly sure I’m not the only person who has it. Plus I really don’t dedicate myself to it much, because I do think it is not ever going to be a reality.

Often I have reasonable ideas, things like be a doula, start a homeschool magazine, create a library for educational items and books. Things that are achievable, or at least more achievable then being the next Heather Bailey or Anna Maria Horner.

When it comes to art I have the attitude that it is something I WANT to do, and with the kid related educational stuff I have the attitude that SOMEONE should so why NOT ME?

Obviously the art ideas make me feel like I’m grasping for the moon, which will forever be out of reach. But the kid ideas make me wonder if I am trying to underachieve, to do what I think will be easier, and will I still have any interest when my kid isn’t a kid anymore?

What if I spend 20 years doing kid stuff, then Blu is gone off to college (which won’t take 20 years) and I realize “Well, now I want to do design?” At an age when starting over is that much harder.

Every night I go to bed and I pray for a sign, not just more crazy ideas but a true sign. And I seems to see them, for both options. One day I discovered a local teaching store was closing and was for sale, a sign? I think so. It didn’t work out. Then I won a contest to open my artsy/funky store. A sign? I think so. But that didn’t work out either. I also go to bed envious. I envy those people who just KNOW what they want to do with their lives, and then actually do it.

One week I post on my blog about homeschool ideas, what we’re doing etc. Then the next I have to fight the urge to take fashion photos of my weird outfits, and share digital things I design. I read about how to get a good blog, with lots of readers, you need to find your niche. How can I find a blog niche when I can’t even decide if I should make purses or sell pencils?

And it all just leaves me wondering. How do you KNOW? How does anyone know? Know what to do? Know what is really a sign? How do you KNOW??

(Both photos from Open Photo. They are not mine.)

I Really do Make things

2010-05-27T16:35:00.001-07:00

It’s true. I do. I mention it here, but rarely showcase anything I’ve done. Let me show you some things I’ve done recently, in the last three days to be exact.

First I hand drew this journal. Each page (including the inside covers, but not including the back cover) feature doodling and prompts for fun filling in.

I also made a stash of headbands. Some for me, some for a friend, some for sale. (More on that in another post) Here are just a few of them.

Most of them feature a vintage or vintage repro on one side and new fabric on the other side. All are reversible, I can’t live without variety ya’ know.

So, have you made anything recently??

Yellow Page Seek & Find

2010-05-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

We live in a suburb of three cities. Two major, Baltimore and DC, and the state capitol. So it is a pretty high speed, people coming and going, almost the city, kind of area. Because of that, atleast I’m guessing that is why, we get A LOT of phone books. Probably at least 6 a year. Seriously. But I try to utilize them, even if I almost never use them to look up a phone number. Whether you get six phone books a year or not, you can still do this too.

The only rule? You have to go front to back. (Get it? Reading readiness? Yeah I’m smart like that)

Before you play with your kids get some idea of what is shown on the yellow pages. Almost every book has a car, a flower, a bug, etc. Then have them start at the beginning, of if it is a real young kid start at the beginning of the correct letter, and make them look for it. Blu’s favorite?

That’s right, Dead Bug! That crazy kid!

I’m hoping to actually create a real list, then at any time I can just pull out the book and say, find a ….

Keeps him entertained for hours. Or at least long enough for me to go potty by myself! (But seriously, it keeps him entertained for awhile)

And if you get as many books as I do here are a few more ideas:

1. Use it for messy projects. Simply tear off the messy page when you’re done!

2. Use it for scissor practice. Just give a kid a phone book and some scissors. Really!

3. Tear off pages for funky drawing paper, or to lay down on the table before creating a mess.

Do you have any more uses for all these phone books I get??

An Idea of Mine

2010-05-22T18:11:00.001-07:00

(I get a LOT of those)

For several years I’ve toyed with an idea, I’ve known what I wanted, but the how has been the big question.

So what have I wanted? A homeschool magazine. A good one. Sure there are several out there already, and some of them are good for certain people, but I want one that is good for everyone! Not so religious that it reads like a church sermon, but not so secular that it leaves you rarely inspired. But how exactly do you do that? How do you get a good bit of info in there? How do you advertise a magazine that is neither secular nor religious?

And in entered Countryside. Countryside is a magazine that I adore. Every time I visit my Aunt and Grandmother at the family farm I borrow a new stack of back issues from my Aunt. Countryside is unlike any other magazine I’ve ever read. How? It’s written by the people who read it. It doesn’t have tons of paid writers, nor set subjects every month (besides certain categories.) In any single issue I’ve read new uses for baking soda, a new canning recipe, how to care for an animal of some sort, tips for homesteading, and inspirational articles too. Countryside is mostly for homesteaders and old fashioned small farmer types, but even with my 1/20 of an acre I can truly utilize the magazine. People write in to search for a certain type of corn seed, or even someone to come help on their farm. Most of the magazine is letters and things submitted by readers! There are more traditional articles, but they too are written by variety of people on a WIDE variety of subjects.

How do the two combine? I’d like my magazine for homeschoolers to be like Countryside is for homesteaders. Written by us, for us. So maybe one month there is an article about how someone discovered the Charlotte Mason method, and one about how someone turned a shed in their backyard into a homeschool project and classroom. Maybe there is an inspirational story about how someone who thought they could never homeschool based on disabilities (theirs or their children's) are now successfully homeschooling.

Get the picture?

Now you tell me, what do YOU think? And please, tell your friends to tell me what THEY think too. The more input I get the more likely I am to move forward!

Tissue Collage Suncatchers

2010-05-21T14:20:00.001-07:00

I realized today that I have A LOT of activities that I photographed to show you here, but never did. Here is one such activity. It’s nothing special, nor imaginative, but maybe you need a quick simple thing and are having one of those common brain-dead parenting kind of days.

First cut tissue paper into strips, then give the kids scissors to cut those strips into pieces. OR just let them tear it (we were practicing scissor skills, so we cut) Also cut clear contact paper to a large sheet size, and remove the paper to reveal the sticky side. Roll just a little of the sticky side under to keep the paper hooked to the table. (Notice the side of Blu’s paper that is farthest away in this photo, you can see the paper rolled under.)

Then simply allow the tissue to stick to the contact paper. Overlap is fine, even encouraged, but don’t let it get to thick (so don’t crumple.) When the kids are finished top it with another sheet of clear contact paper the same size. Punch a hole in the top, or even cut it into shapes first!

(Notice the snow on the ground, there wasn’t a lot of sun to come through.)

Also, I do still only have one child, two days a week I watch another little boy, and while I don’t post pictures of him here, his work is sometimes shared. :)

We did these right before Blu turned three, about a month before, and he did his (on the right) all by himself. Brandon is one month younger, and got quite a bit of help. If you do this, I’d love to see your results!!

Why I won’t Buy or Sell on Etsy

2010-05-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago I was trying to settle down and really get crackin on my art/craft business. In doing research I read blogs, browsed for competition, and read everything I could about Etsy vs Artfire vs Big Cartel. In the end I decided that I will never sell on Etsy, and in a method of extreme protest I refuse to buy there either.

While I love that Etsy has had a huge part to do with bringing handmade to the forefront, I can see that they’ve become like any other “evil corporation.” They are the Wal-mart of handmade. Yeah I said it, the evil corp Wal-Mart, they are the handmade alternative. (ETA. The below thing turns into a bit of a rant, to skip to a sum up, scroll down. I’ll make it all caps “sum up”)

It all started with pure fun on Regretsy, but that lead to a blog called Callin Out on Etsy. Among other things. Here’s a sum up of what' I’ve learned in all my years of perusing Etsy, and in my recent research:

When you open a magazine and see a glossy full-page ad for Etsy, Etsy didn’t pay for that. They market off those tiny two inch squares in an auction that you have to fight hundreds of other people to win. In reality ALL the Etsy ads you see, all the stuff you hear about, it’s word of mouth. Etsy has thousands of sellers, millions of items, 10 cents per item, they are IN the money. But what do they pay for? They don’t even create the treasury ads for the front page, other Etsiers do that work.

So if they are sucking in money like a giant money vacuum, what ARE they doing? Well it took over a year and a giant petition to get them to add a simple category to the listing choices, so they aren’t working for you (the buyer or the seller).

Work gets buried in seconds, because the search feature doesn’t go by most relevant, but by most recently listed, and have you ever noticed only top sellers are on the first few pages. Sellers have to relist items over and over to prevent being on page 1 zillion. All the more money Etsy is sucking in. Why are they listed by OLDEST first (a feature you can enable, if you pay attention and take the time) or more importantly why not most relevant to your search first?

And the big kicker, they DON’T CARE if items follow the rules or not. If you read a few posts on Callin’ Out, you will see (and they have more then enough proof to back it up) that every day on Etsy thousands of items are up for sale that are against the rules. They don’t police it, that would be a REALLLY hard job, but even when others police it for them, many items are never removed. Recently there was a post going on the official Etsy forum, which said to sum it up “Hey, how come such-n-such a seller is obviously a reseller, and even has reseller watermarks in their photos?” What did Etsy do? They REMOVED the FORUM THREAD, but you know what, last I checked the actual store was still there. Full of mass produced, resale crap. They are NOT vintage, they are NOT supplies. There are thousands of items in almost any category, jewelry, purses, and more. Did you accidentally buy a skirt, then decide you didn’t like it? That’s alright, Etsy will let you sell it. Is a skirt I bought at Target a supply? Ahh, no it’s vintage right??

They don’t care if items are using copyright pictures. I can set up and Etsy store, full of other people’s items, use the other people photos, and apparently Etsy won’t shut it down. It happens, A LOT. It happens with handmade, it happens using wholesale, it even happens with fair trade. It’s ALL over Etsy.

Okay, so I’ve turned this into a bit of a rant, but let me do a quick SUM UP:

Etsy is making BIG money, but allows people to break the rules (even after Etsy is made aware of it.) They don’t work for the sellers. They don’t seem to do any of their own advertising with the money they are sucking in. So what is Etsy doing with the money? What is Etsy REALLY doing for handmade, besides allowing it to be displayed next to wholesale crap made in foreign lands? What is Etsy doing for crafters besides allowing their hard work to be buried in seconds, never to be seen by a potential buyer?

Next time you go to buy that feathery headband featured on the homepage, google “feather headband wholesale” and I bet you’ll find the exact same one. The exact same one only mass produced and sold for pennies.

And why does everyone keep going for it? I have no idea. But sellers, I can tell you this, if you want money from this handmade lover you need to sell somewhere else. I don’t shop at Wal-Mart, and I won’t shop on Etsy.

Brown and Green Sandwich

2010-05-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Not the most appealing name, but I can’t think of anything good to call it. Please forgive the messy plate, I didn’t originally intend to blog it, but the first half was SO yummy I wanted to share!

First toast an everything bagel, or regular toast, or whatever.It would even be good on a wrap.

Spread a good hummus on the bottom of the bagel. I make my hummus from scratch, with garbanzos I cook from dry. Every taster so far says it’s the best. Stay tuned for a recipe.

Top the hummus with lettuce. Top the lettuce with veggie turkey slices, or if you eat meat regular turkey. :)

Top the turkey with avocado slices.

On the top of the bagel put some Miracle Whip, and Dijon mustard.

And there you have it, layers of brown and green that make a fabulous sandwich!

South Western Wrap

2010-05-13T11:56:00.001-07:00

Since dropping meat, I feel SO much better. I lost 8 pounds without doing anything else! The indigestion I’d had every day due to gallbladder issues is gone. Since mostly dropping dairy my thyroid function has increased. For the first time in a LONGGGG time I actually feel my age. And I’m taking food more seriously in general, which made me come up with this tantalizing lunch. Though truth be told, I ate it for Breakfast, well brunch really. I drink coffee for breakfast, then eat a good brunch around 11.

The South Western Wrap:

First I took a Gardenburger Tomato Basil patty, And cooked it in the microwave for speed. Then for texture finished it off in the toaster. You can really cook it anyway you’d like. And anyway that I have cooked this patty I LOVE it.

Then I took that patty, tore it in half, and wrapped each half in a leaf of lettuce.

Lay the wrapped patties, in a whole wheat wrap. Slice up one half of a yummy avocado and lay the slices next to the patty. Add just a little salsa, and even some crushed up tortilla chips if you have them.

It is so very very good!

My Latest Yummy

2010-04-24T15:43:00.001-07:00

Recently I tried a new cooking experiment and while the true health benefits can be questioned it is VERY good, and vegetarian friendly. Meat eaters, just cook a side of bacon.

It’s not the fastest breakfast in the world (read further down for an easier variation) but it still doesn’t take unreasonably long either. I like it so much that today I had it for dinner!

It’s so easy that it doesn’t even require a true recipe.

Layer:

1 slice of toast

1 or 2 thin slices of onion sautéed

1 or 2 (I like 2) poached eggs. I make mine still runny, but you can cook it all the way if you prefer.

Top with salt, pepper, and thin curls of cheese. Tonight I happened to have some fresh lemon basil from a friend’s garden, so I diced it up on top also. It’s yummy without it though.

What I do is start the toast, start the water boiling for the eggs, then start the onion. The bread is ready before the onions. The onion is done before the water is ready, so I put the onion on the bread then move to put the eggs in the water. As the eggs cook I slice any fresh herbs. So it goes together pretty smoothly.

Honestly the cheese adds so little flavor that if you don’t do dairy (I am cutting it out) you can just leave it out. No biggie.

If you are short on time, or don’t like poached eggs, check out this easier variation I did for Blu. I have no problem with giving him fully cooked poached eggs, but he waited until I was almost done eating to decide he wanted the same thing. (Usually we all eat together but we have a variety of circumstances today that are causing a more eat when you want household.) I whipped this up just to be easier then redoing the whole thing again.

I skipped the onions, just for times sake. I topped toast with a slice of American cheese, then a fried egg, then pepper, salt, and lemon basil. He scarfed it down and declared it “yummy yummy!”

Bon Appetite, which my Dad says “Is French for Let’s eat!”

A Six Month Plan

2010-04-23T15:48:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel like I frequently announce new things I’m going to change about myself, my life, or whatever? I kinda do, just my fickle way of trying to be the best person I can.

Due to variety of reasons I’m making some real changes now. Here is my six month plan:

Drop meat- cold turkey, starting yesterday. I’ve been debating it a lot. I was a vegetarian for several years, but lived at home, was in high school/college and it was a life of eating side dishes and no entrees. I lived in a place with almost no vegetarian options. I got sick of the lack of food. When I went to the prom, my prom night special dinner involved me order a plate of appetizers! On Tuesday we were at a Chinese buffet and I was slowly tearing into some steamed crabs. I was only slowly cracking them open, and didn’t have my usual (or any Marylanders) gusto. I realized I couldn’t get over the legs and parts of this creature which I was tearing apart for my food. Then it started. Blu started pointing to my crab and saying “No eat me! No eat me! Mama he’s crying!” And I had to put down the crab.

Drop dairy- no buying more, and after anything we have is gone we’re done, as a family, for minimum of two months. Why? we are all allergic to it. My husband and I both couldn’t have yogurt, ice cream, anything until we were in double digits! Right now I have a bum gallbladder, and hypothyroidism, both most likely caused by 26 years of forcing my body to digest something it’s allergic to. Blu is allergic too. I don’t want him to have my problems, and I especially don’t want him to think it’s hard to give up because he doesn’t know how to live without cheese. We’re going to do two months, after the day our existing dairy runs out, and see how it changes us. Maybe we’ll go back, maybe not.

No Bottled Drinks- Okay, secret confession time. I literally live off of soda and coffee. It’s true. I drink almost nothing but coffee and soda. When I feel the affects of true dehydration, then I guzzle a sports drink, and then I go back to the bad stuff. I’m not giving up coffee, it’s one small joy of mine in this life, my own special treat. But I will not be buying or drinking bottled juice, soda, water, tea, sports drinks, etc. My big thing behind this is that I can say I’ll drop soda, but I’d replace it with other stuff. I’d buy sports drinks, or bottled teas. And I pictured the bottles. It’s a lot of bottles. So the no soda is for me, and the no bottles is for the environment.

No Sugar- We are going to slowly find good alternatives to processed sugar and by 6 months I will be (hopefully) completely sugar free. This is a family thing that we will always stick with. We may eventually be a little more accepting of sweet sugary treats, but I want to break the cravings before I cave. This is for Blu’s sake, as well as our own. It goes back to the whole “I don’t want it to be hard for him” thing. I don’t want him to need to give it up and find it impossible. I’d rather it be something he barely knows to begin with.

Eat Local/Seasonal- We’re going for a combo here. We want to buy local, when it’s in season, and preserve it for when it isn’t in season. So we will buy what we can seasonally, from local sources, but are not sticking to only local AND seasonal. We’re not going to make a chore of it for ourselves, visiting farms for eggs and so forth, but we live in an area with a lot of options. Farmer’s Markets galore on weekends, and a variety of health food stores. We already buy our meat, hormone free and organic, from a local butcher. He gets it from farms less then a 100 miles away. Of course the meat doesn’t affect me anymore, but I think the fact that we do that for cheaper then grocery store meat is pretty awesome.

And not a huge one but I want to drop as much packaging as possible. Buying more bulk, buying in bulk in my own fabric bags when possible, etc etc. We do better then a lot of people with this already, but I want to do better.

Then after I/we decided all these things I realized they correspond with “Earth Day.” But I had no idea. I’m one of those “Earth day EVERY day” people.

But going with these life changes, I want some input from you dear readers. Do you want me to regularly share things with you about these goals? How I’m doing, recipes, etc? I don’t want this to be a “granola” blog, I’ll still do other stuff, but it would make this a combo of vegan/locavore/homeschool/crafts/photography/life kind of blog. Maybe some ideas of the foods I eat, some pics of farmer’s markets, some personal insight on this journey, and some regular parent of a preschooler things. Do YOU want to continue to read about my life changes? Or would you rather the other stuff, and a minimal amount of hippie stuff? Give me your input in the comments below. Leave me some Smart Remarks. If nobody wants to read a lot of it, maybe I’ll start another blog for that type of stuff.

Maybe I’m just not strong enough

2010-04-22T13:55:00.001-07:00

Do you ever feel like just screaming “Come on world, isn’t that enough?? Give me a break!!!!” Because it seems to be a constant something. That’s how I feel right now. Either me or hubby has been laid up/sick/etc since DECEMBER!! I had two months with a badly sprained ankle. I apparently got as close to snapping a ligament completely as you can without actually snapping it. Apparently my ankle was holding together by a string. It took ages to actually feel remotely normal again. THEN, while still hobbling, a cold went around here, and not just any cold, but a knock you out, wish you were dead, are you sure this isn’t the flu, kind of cold. Which it seems a lot of people got sinus infections because it. But I also have BAD allergies (I’m afraid at my upcoming allergist appointment that he may tell me I actually DO need to live in a bubble!) I’ve had a sinus infection for a month. Two weeks of that time I was on “Vacation,” and had a rash, it HURT, it BURNED, I felt like parts of my skin were on fire. We chocked it up to allergies, but turns out I had Fifths Disease!

I hate to write a blog post just to complain, and trust me I know it could be worse, it could be much worse. I HATE the fact though that I haven’t been writing at all. So many other good, wonderful, things have happened. Great pictures have been taken. None of them captured on my blog. I know blog writers come and go, and sometimes you read a blog and say “Hey they haven’t posted in MONTHS, they must not be doing it anymore.” I don’t want to look like that is happening here. It just seems like no matter how hard I try to change, to change my life, my habits, no matter how hard I try to do certain things, daily photography project, regular blog posts, it seems like the world puts obstacles in my path. Maybe I am to weak to break through the challenge?

Adults vs Monkey bars

2010-03-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

At Blu’s party we walked to the local party. I was quite interested to see how the adults faired on the monkey bars. For a quick recap the kids were total monkeys:

All three cops made it across:

(Yes that tiny person towards the end is a full grown woman. Yes she is a cop. And yes the idea cracks me up immensely!)

Blu is looking on to see if Daddy can do it.

This one is carefully disguised by Nick and Blu.

The Administrative Assistant tried.

Sadly, my dear friend didn’t make the journey. By the time the camera focused she had fallen and was walking away.

But I can’t say much, neither I nor the other stay at home mom in attendance even attempted it. I probably would if (and she too) if it wasn’t for sickness. (I am pretty sure my past cold is turning into a sinus infection, and I’m still dealing with my ankle also)

The last monkey bar athlete, and most surprising by far, was a scientist! While his journey was not captured on film I can assure you that this man truly DID make it all the way across the monkey bars.

and that is the results of the Birthday Party Monkey Bar Challenge!

An Animal Birthday

2010-03-20T16:00:00.001-07:00

Today was Blu’s birthday party. He asked for an animal theme, especially monkeys and dogs. Yes, yes monkeys AND dogs. It took three different stores for find enough that wasn’t just zoo themed or dog themed, but I managed.

We had a roll of zoo animal pictures to decorate (it was left mostly untouched until everyone was gone and Blu did about 5)

We had animal charades, which sadly no embarrassing photos were taken.

We had play dough and animal cutters, many many animal cookies were made.

I hid animal themed prizes in our big rice bin. The kids took turns digging for them.

We walked to the neighborhood park, where the kids made monkeys of themselves.

The food included “puppy chow,” pigs in a blanket, monkey tails (frozen bananas in chocolate, which never got served) plus cow tails.

Party favors included squirrel nut zippers, swedish fish, and banana laffy taffy (monkey related,) plus a small puzzle (the ball in a plastic capsule kind) some small plastic animal figures, animals stickers, and general noisy toys.

And that is how we throw and animal themed (with emphasize on monkeys and dogs) party here at the Suburban Composition household!

Stay tuned tomorrow to see how the adults faired on the monkey bars!

My Little Preschooler

2010-03-18T12:37:00.001-07:00

Monday my precious little guy turned three years old!! I couldn’t help but reminisce all day about the newborn I held three years ago.

Here’s a photo of a newborn Blu, literally minutes, if not seconds, old.

Here’s a photo of birthday boy Blu, knocked out from the birthday festivities.

Oh my goodness!

Happy birthday baby!!!

Thrift Store JACKPOT

2010-03-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve STILL been laid up with my sprained ankle, a visit to the orthopedic specialist showed that I probably as as close to a snapped ligament as you can without snapping it. Essentially I have to heal from a very severe sever which takes a long time. Oddly enough the thing I’ve wanted most was a trip to the thrift store. I was going to go a few days after the injury, or was going to go before I got injured. I’m able to drive short distances now, and though the drive plus walking proved to much I went yesterday and I HIT THE JACKPOT!!! It was single handedly the best thrift store visit of all time. Keep in mind please that I’ve been thrift shopping for most of my 26 years, I’ve gotten expensive raincoats for $3, vintage clothes for mere quarters, and so on. Yesterdays visit really beats all.

Please ignore the fact that the skirts are drying in our ugly unfinished basement and enjoy the awesomeness instead.

The brown print is a full circle skirt. The black one has a tulle trim and an all over embroidery, I actually bought it on my last trip to the thrift, but it is just now getting washed (gentle cycles you know, you have to wait for a full load) The blue gray skirt you see on the very side is actually inside out to dry better but is very similar to this one.

Behind the blue gray skirt, and unphotographed is one of those awesome 100% silk two layered wrap skirt/dress things. Like sold here. It’s a short one, one layer blue and one orange. I have a long one of these I got from hubby and Blu for my birthday last year and ADORE it. I’ve been wanting a short one so I can wear it as just a top.

Ugly backdrop, but two awesome skirts. One pastely print light and airy one, and one chino with full front floral embroidery!

AND, another crappy photo, but awesome sweater!

It’s not misshapen, it’s laying over a couch back to dry.

THEN, the most amazing find of all, these two pairs of shoes. I have big feet and thrift store shoes are a VERY rare find for me. Imagine my joy in finding two great pairs in one trip!!! I’ve been on a quest for cute mary janes JUST like these to wear with my skirts.

Here’s the greatest part of the already amazing jackpot. Those brown shoes, “Sanita” looked it up and they are HANDMADE Danish clogs! Retail value $120, I paid $5!!!!!!! I told my hubby if all $100+ shoes are this comfy, I never want a cheap pair again in my life.

I also got Blu (or rather Blu got Blu) a funky hawaiian shirt several sizes to big, and also a book of books. One tiny little word book for each letter of the alphabet, plus 1-10, plus two shapes.

My thrift store total, less then half the price of those brown shoes new! SO worth the pain my ankle had last night!! Which in other news, being on pain killers so long has apparently messed up my allergies to the point that I am not having hives and terrible allergies. I have to choose between painful hives or a painful ankle. Sometimes things just pile up. But I’ll pull through.

Muffin Tin - Yellow

2010-03-16T14:58:00.001-07:00

I’m posting this a week late, when I went to post this weeks tin and saw last week’s never made it. For our yellow tin we had:

Spaghetti noodles, with cheese

Applesauce

Corn pops! (A special treat for Blu)

(it’s in a plate, because I don’t have enough tins for both boys I have Mondays, my kid plus one more)

Muffin Tin- Green

2010-03-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

With the color themed tins I’ve been using a lot of food dyes. I did the yellow tin, but I don’t think I posted it.

For Green we had:

Dyed Green Spinach ravioli- green inside and out!

Dyed green scrambled eggs

Dyed green applesauce.

I really need to buy more muffin tins, or at least silicone cups. I’ve started watching another little boy on Monday but only have one tin, so we’ve been using sectioned plates.

Now, to do a very late post of last week’s yellow tin!

365 Toy- almost week 1

2010-03-01T14:24:00.001-08:00

I recently have fallen in love with Flickr. I can see inspirational things, find decor ideas, see items for sale, get creative ideas, and have creative challenges all in one place! It’s like heaven in a website. As part of my “I’m going to crack down, move forward, make art my life……” thing I’ve become more active on Flickr, and joined a challenge called The 365 Toy Project. Essentially you take a photo of a toy every day for a year. I already had to skip a day, but just made it up the following day. About once a week I’ll share my photos with you, but you can add me as a contact over there (username mom2blu) and see them daily if you’d like.

The first 5 of my 365 are:

They are all linked to their home on flickr, so you can click to read any individual story lines (such as the bunny with the broken arm.)

Odd Little Birds

2010-02-25T13:25:00.001-08:00

I’ve had a rough day today. I’ve felt as though life has been kicking me in the face all day. Upon waking this morning I discovered that someone I knew online years ago, someone I was on a design team with, has since written a book, traveled to several countries to teach classes, and is making quite a name for herself. What have I done? Well, what’s one notch above nothing? Then a brand new doll/figure of mine broke. PLUS my ankle is still killing me and we ran out of Ibuprofen.

Anyway, all day I’ve been beating myself up about the first thing on that list. I don’t think it’s any secret that I fantasize of being part of the art and design community, and I am well aware that the only thing holding me back is me.

That’s where odd birds come in. About 5 or 6 years ago I had an Etsy shop, “Odd Little Duck” which is now defunct. My original banner and avatar were a digital drawing I did of odd ducks. The fact that my drawing is not the best, and it was my first attempt at digital art, meant they were not very good ducks. But over the years they’ve grown, changed, and well they aren’t ducks anymore. They are birds. The annoying part is that after I drew this rather sad examples of ducks, and started to use it as a signature of sorts the bird popped up EVERYWHERE! I even got paper at the dollar store with a border of very similar birds. So I let them go, I figured there was nothing special about me or my birds if they were everywhere. BUT I’ve still held onto them, I bought that dollar tree paper, I’ve stitched them over and over, and stitched other peoples versions of them.

So today I decided to move forward with my stupid simple little birds. I’m gonna stitch them, appliqué them, make digital things with them, sketch them, maybe find a way to tat them. What will make them unique is the coloring, the styles, and what will make them good is my dedication, and craft abilities. Do you know how many people make varieties of peg dolls? I do, a LOT, but they are still all nice. Do I have any idea who did them first? Nope. That’s me and my birds. Truthfully nothing original is left in this world, everything has been done before at some time or another.

So I’m going to go back and embrace the birds I’ve been doing all along. And whether it goes far for me or not, well that doesn’t matter cause I love them, and I enjoy them, and I like making all kinds of versions of them!

Orange Muffin Tin

2010-02-23T12:26:00.001-08:00

We FINALLY did Muffin tin Monday again! It’s been a long time. Not really on purpose, just forgetting, remembering to late, not having the right foods, etc etc. You will have to forgive one little thing, it isn’t actually in a muffin tin. I’ve started watching a little boy and only have one tin, I couldn’t let just one kid have a tin, so they just had sectioned plates.

They each had, one half an oranage, 3 carrots, 1 cheese biscuit sandwich, some orange colored applesauce (I dyed it with red and yellow) and one 1/2 of an orange licorice.

Here’s a shot of my plate, minus all the totally healthy stuff, just to show the biscuits.

Here’s how to make them:

Use a can of “pop” biscuits, (the tube kind) take one biscuit and put 1/4 of a slice of cheese on top. Take another biscuit and pres it on top, sealing the edges like a pie. Top with another 1/4 piece of cheese, and bake as the package directs. They come out a tad bland for adult mouths, so if you are eating it and like more flavor then sprinkle a dash of seasoning on top, and even inside.

Meet My New Companions

2010-02-12T13:46:00.001-08:00

I have three new daily companions. For those unaware the north east has gotten a LOT of snow lately. Last Saturday my town got 34 inches!!! So my first companion is snow, because seriously, this stuff is not melting anytime soon. These are various picture from last weekend. The cars are shoveled out now, but really where do you put that much snow, so it’s piled outside the living room window. The parking area is now down to black top, and roads too. But this is what we had to deal with.

And that leads me to companion number two, and three, or technically two, three, and four.

A bad picture since I’m laid up, but it’s two crutches and an ankle splint!

I have a condition in my leg already, including nerve damage and lack of some muscle among some other things, which is an important detail to the following story.

When the snow had stopped falling I cut up a large box and attempted to get Blu to sled down a small hill with the box, but he didn’t understand what I was trying to do, wouldn’t distribute his weight properly, and wasn’t moving. I had to walk alongside him pushing him forward, stepping in snow above my knees, until he finally got enough momentum to go by himself. At one point I stepped down wrong, but it didn’t hurt much after, I thought nothing off it because with my issues I “step down wrong” dozens of times a week. It wasn’t until I came inside, took off my boot, and realized I could barely walk on it, and had to stumble to the couch that I realized I didn’t just step down wrong. Then I just relaxed, thinking it was a sprain, a good twist, etc etc, and it needed a few days. That was Sunday. When yesterday I woke up still barely able to move, AND was safely plowed out and not snowed in any more, I had a friend take me to the ER. She had 4 wheel drive don’t ya know.

Luckily it is NOT broken, which in my case is truly something to be grateful for. My doctors have always told me that with my existing problem breaking my foot or leg would have very bad repercussions. It is however a serious sprain. How serious? I have no idea, I had to worse DR and Nurse ever. They told me NOTHING besides the fact that the x-ray was clear so I was getting a splint, and to follow up with an orthopedic if it doesn’t start to feel at least a little better soon. And that my dears was it. They gave me paperwork on how to use crutches, info on my splint (which is apparently used for moderate to severe sprains) and such and sent me on my way. The oh so lovely nurse, saw me with a stack of papers, a purse, my coat, new crutches, and didn’t even offer to help me to the waiting room! After I told her I was uncoordinated and she admitted Crutches would be hard for me. I woke up this morning and realized I had NO idea how to even put the splint back on! Luckily You-tube of all places helped with various videos on the exact splint I had.

So for the next 6 weeks minimum I have a splint companion, and a set of crutches for who knows how long. And eventually NEW dr bills, hurray! Because the old ones they just weren’t annoying enough!

I go in strange houses

2010-02-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

It’s a strange a true confession, but I do. For a large part of my life I’ve loved going in abandoned houses and buildings. I don’t damage anything, I don’t take anything (unless I have previous permission from the owner) I just go. I try to get permission to enter if possible, but know that technically I’m entering illegally if I don’t have permission. I also know that if I fell through and broke a floorboard or something there would be consequences, and no I don’t mean suing the owner. (Though perhaps they could sue me!)

Recently I’ve decided to combine that strange love with something else, my strange love and fascination of old worn out houses. Without a doubt if I drive past a run down abandoned house, especially a farm house or Victorian, I will fall hopelessly in love and fantasize about buying it and saving it. In fact if I ever had just bookoos of money, that’s what I’d do, I’d buy old houses, just so they don’t get torn down. I love them that much. I have cried over them more then once. The idea that this house, where people where born, where they lived, where they loved, where they grew, will be torn down with no second thoughts truly breaks my heart. So I plan to start a long-term photography project to capture some of these houses. To be sure that these house are actually captured on film, remembered in some way.

Here’s the first one of the series, a neat old farm house obviously abandoned since the 60’s perhaps 70’s, (I can tell by what furniture and appliances were left) I didn’t go upstairs, but all in all the main floor was in amazing condition for being alone so long. The property is currently for sale as an estate property, so I KNOW before long this place will be gone. Just rumble on a hill, torn down for something new.

Here’s just two shots. One of the outside, and one of the VERY unique stairwell.

The strange stairwell, can you spot what is so strange about it?

That white corner juts out just inches above the very top step, and leaves only about 8 inches between the corner of the wall and the corner of the landing! Only inches!

If the house is still there, and enterable, next time I pass (who knows when that may be) I’m going to voyage upstairs. if I can squeeze my large rumpus between that landing!

Garlands… My Decor of Choice

2010-02-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

Whatever the holiday may be I do like to decorate, but who has the time to decorate top to bottom for every single holiday of the year. And more importantly WHO has the SPACE to store all that stuff??? Not me! But I manage to decorate for most semi-major holidays with one simple solution, Garlands! I’m slowly building a stash for various holidays, and can keep several in just one little show box! Here’s my Valentine’s Ones:

The big one. This is handmade and about 12 to 15 feet long. I crocheted a ton of little hearts in all sorts of pink, red, and white yarns, then do a crochet chain to hook them all together. Here’s a more detailed shot.

It stretches across the wall of our entire living room!

This year to add to my Valentine’s Day collection I made these:

To make these I printed these adorable Valentine’s cards from Pepto Girl then cut them out, strung them on yarn semi-sparkly yarn and hide them in Hubby’s closet and hung one above Blu’s dresser.

I’ve decided that garlands are easily my go to decor item. And shhhhh don’t tell, but my Thanksgiving one is still hanging in my Dining Room!

Do you have a go-to decor item? I’d love to hear about it!

10 Years Ago

2010-01-27T16:31:00.001-08:00

In order for a big part of this part of this post to make any sense you have to know two things:

1. I am a bit of a hoarder- not like the people who live in a maze of boxes, but to the level that on any given day I can truly find something from 10 years ago that I had no idea existed.

2. I’ve always wanted to write a book. ALWAYS.

Today I was killing time in our unfinished basement/laundry/storage area because I KNEW the washer was almost done and I am far to tired to make a special trip down to put laundry in the dryer in five minutes. I discovered what was apparently one failed book attempt, an attempt from the Fall of 1999.

This particular book was apparently the one year diary of a 16 year old romantic and her lessons on love. I kept at it for a whole season pretty well, until I finally stopped. While the beginning entries were confusing to me, the last entry was still so wise, even to a 10 year older me.

The confusion was based on one small thing. I was telling a HUGE lie to myself. My first boyfriend, before the book was begun, had taught me not to trust anyone. So I spent years forcing guys I truly cared about away, so that I wouldn’t have to risk the lies they’d tell and the fact that I knew they’d break my heart. I was also forcing myself to not truly love the ones I loved.

I was, and still am, a hopeless romantic who truly thought that all romance should be whirlwinds that swept you off your feet. That guy you met in the local department store would track you down, and when you were of age, after years of wonderful dating, you’d be married. Yeah, I know, what a dreamer I was!!

And all of this comes into play in this “book” from 10 years ago. As I began reading I thought, oh, this must be from highschool (ie. pre-meeting my husband) but quickly I realized it wasn’t and the entries of “Oh I love so-n-so, but what about ….” had me puzzled. I loved my husband from the very first second I laid eyes on him. Truly. There was no other guy for me from that exact second. And I have always been well aware of that fact. But in this “book” it is clear that I was truly trying to convince myself otherwise! It’s all very confusing and simply the life of one screwed up teenager I suppose.

Reading one entry from 10 years ago that said “If only I could look 10 years into the future, would I have kids, a husband, true love?” cracked me up.

So here’s a quick letter to me, 10 years ago:

Dear Alicia,

You are far to emotional and over think everything. You are looking for a type of love as though it doesn’t exist, when you KNOW it is there with you right now. In fact it is with you so often that I bet if you turn your head left or right his giant watermelon head is less then three feet away. You’ve known you loved him from the very start, the very first second. Admit it, to him and more importantly to yourself. The worst lies to be told are the lies you tell yourself.

Oh, and you marry that watermelon headed fellow, and so far have one kid who does unfortunately also have a watermelon head. And you got far far away from the hellhole of a small town you live in and despise.

Love, yourself in ten years

Also, I’d like to share with you the last entry from that “book,” the last entry from a 16 year old me.

“I have not written in awhile, instead of writing, of dreaming, I’ve been living. This “book” was supposed to be about one 16 year old’s look at love over a year, the lessons she had learned, the pain she’s taken, learning what love is during a rough stage of life. It didn’t take a year for me to learn my lesson. Sometimes your heart gives you an order, and you have to listen. You can’t think of color, distance, or heartbreak. You have to live before you die, and nothing can tell you how to live better then your own heart does. Live your love, and your life, day by day. And if something decides to leave your life, then hope it doesn’t wander long, and don’t ever be afraid to cry. Live.”

A Homeschool Planning Idea (with download!)

2010-01-26T15:37:00.001-08:00

I’ve noticed that like many homeschoolers we are already hording a large amount of games, manipulatives, and activities we like. I’ve been wishing there was a chart that let me see not only what we have, but when we last used it. Then when planning our week and workboxes I can work in items we haven’t used for awhile. In my mind, and I know this is probably a lie and I have no intention of sticking to it, if it goes without use for 6 months then it can be gotten rid of! I mean come on, if we haven’t played with a certain puzzle in 6 months can’t it go to the Thrift??

It’s a simple document, you write the activity in one column, then there are 7 narrow columns where you jot the date you use it. The activity can be anything from playing Simon Says, to visiting a petting zoo or museum, to using a game/puzzle/workbook.

I posted it on Scribd, and you can snag as many copies as you need for free, HERE. One thing though, when I exported it as a PDF, it somehow gained a blank second page that I can’t seem to get rid off! So you might want to set your printer to only print page 1.

Enjoy!

A LARGE family

2010-01-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

For New Years my parents came, and we had small amounts of family while they were here. In one photo my living room is full of people, but I know it was a very small percentage of my family here that day. One uncle and his kids, one cousin and his wife, us, and my parents. That’s it. It made me curious, how much family do I have??

Well, assuming all my brainstorming and math is correct I have:

18 Living Aunts and Uncles by blood or step family, not including by marriage

I think 10 Aunts and Uncles by marriage, meaning they married my Aunt or Uncle

42 Cousins- all the children of aunts and uncles by blood or marriage

AND

35 second cousins! Kids of those cousins.

And if you want to get really technical, I also have 2 third cousins, kids of cousins kids!

And that does not include anyone who “well we know they’re related but we don’t know how.” This is only strictly accounted for aunts, uncles, their kids, and those kids (my cousins) kids.

That is a LARGE family! Let’s hope I’ve never expected to fit them all in my house!

Cheap & Wonderful Dinner

2010-01-18T10:58:00.001-08:00

Last night we had a wonderful dinner, it was delicious, nutritious, and best of all super cheap. I calculated the entire meal to cost less then $3! Mostly because we do a large percent of our grocery shopping at Aldi (if you don’t already you REALLY should.) The prices are so good that it was worth our time to travel almost 20 minutes away to do large amounts of shopping there! Luckily we have a closer one now though. The trick to traveling to shop is making sure you are saving enough to make it worthwhile. Saving well over 50 bucks (sometimes over a $100!)is well worth the $5 worth of gas to get there. If you save $20 and pay $10 in gas just save your time.

Almost all of the dishes I cook cost $5 or less, not including meat. We buy local hormone free meat from a butcher so I don’t calculate it in the price. He gives me a good deal if I buy a large amount at once. Last time we got hormone free skinless boneless chicken breast, and ground beef, both for about $3 a pound.

You need:

1 box or bag of pierogies- A dumpling stuffed with mashed potatoes. Usually available in the frozen food section, and at Aldi they are $1.69 a box. At regular grocery stores I think they are about $4

6 Tablespoons of Butter- cut into little pats or chunks. At Aldi butter is $1.69 a pound so this butter cost me about 50 cents.

1 small onion- which cost me 20 cents (I used red)

dash of red Wine vinegar

small amount of cooking oil.

I also used one half of a bag of frozen peas as a side dish, so that was 50 cents.

How to:

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Thinly slice the onion. Sauté the onion and sprinkle in a dash of the vinegar. Cook until just beginning to be translucent, they will still bake in the oven too.

Take a small baking dish and lay the pierogies in the dish. Top with the pieces of butter. Top with the onions. Sprinkle with just a tiny bit more of the vinegar.

Cover with foil and bake. I baked mine at 400 for 20 minutes and then since I was still giving a bath to a certain little someone it was turned down to 350 and cooked maybe 15 minutes more. It was probably done after the first 20.

We loved eating ours by mixing the cooked onions in with the peas.

My husband is a massive carnivore, he hates veggie meals, but he was surprisingly okay with this. It’s because the pierogies are so filling.

If you make this I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I Dressed in Garb and I Liked It

2010-01-13T19:33:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday I had been invited to an Amtgard Coronation. Amtgard is essentially a more relaxed SCA. You dress in medieval/renaissance garb, but it doesn’t have to be 100% period and accurate, AND there is a strong fantasy element to it. More then one player had elf ear attachments, and one character was a bear man. I forget the term he used but he was essentially a bear that walks on two legs and fights with swords and talks.

Since I have had interest in SCA and am also willing to try anything once I pulled some garby items from my closet, yes they were my everyday clothes I just dress “funny,” and I went. And I had a BALL! It was so much fun!

Since I had to go to my friend and get costume approval (turns out it was fine anyway) I didn’t get any pictures of me in my garb before I left the house, then we had a birthday party after and so I just came home to worn out and forgot. BUT don’t worry there will be pictures of me in costume to come, because I have EVERY intention to keep playing!

This weekend I may go to another event, AND Blu and possibly even Nick might go too! How adorable will this face be in garb!??!

Strange Childhood Memories

2010-01-11T17:36:00.001-08:00

Recently I’ve been getting nostalgic for various reasons, and someone else shared the website Retro Junk, which is making me even more nostalgic. So I wanted to share with you one thing which is, quite oddly, one of my main childhood memories. I LOVED this commercial. Strange but true.

Anyone else remember this commercial???

And does anyone else remember the VERY first time they saw, and even ate microwave popcorn?? I do!

We're Not Raising Children, We're Raising Adults

2010-01-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

Blu has a tendency to do some strange things, to put it mildly, weird little kid things, and many parents would be inclined to let him. "He's only a boy/toddler." "But it's so cute!" I have a different philiosohpy on parenting. We as parents are not raising children, we are not raising little girls or little boys. We are raising adults, responsible women and men. Do they still need, and deserve, to climb trees, finger paint, and blow bubbles. Yes. What I'm talking about is bigger then that. Yes they are children, and need to play like children play, but one day, and all to soon, they will be adults. They will need to know how to act properly in public (or you'll be telling your 15 year old to pull their pants up in the grocery store.) They will need to know how to do laundry, cook and bake, treat others.

Some people say I'm to hard on Blu, mostly my parents. But I look at it this way, he has to learn sometime, and the sooner the better. He gets his share of fun too. So many people let their children do things because it's cute, or snap pictures instead of punishing, but then wonder why the child repeats that behavior. Well last time it got their picture taken, but this time you are frustrated and punish them, and wonder why they are confused.

With Blu if I'd think it was unacceptable if he was older, then I treat it as unacceptable now. I am not raising a little boy, I am raising him into what he will become, a grown man.

Epiphanies

2010-01-08T09:28:00.001-08:00

Oh they are wonderful things. You just know that God is giving you this message, making things clear in your mind. Especially when you know that it isn’t something you ever would have concluded on your own. When it is so beyond your usual train of thought you know his hand was in there.

After my post the other day I stayed up late into the night, trying to relax, calm my mind, and hopefully get a good night’s sleep. In the process I had one of those God given epiphanies. Let me explain:

When I was 13 I decided I wanted to run a store. I did NOT want to get married and especially did want to have kids, I just wanted a store. As time passed I met Nick, I grew and changed, the store idea grew and slowly changed but never disappeared. Blu was born. The store idea still grew and changed, and I was dedicated to it. It has been my dream for so long, I’m not giving it up, was a common thought to me. BUT I realized two nights ago that the stress in my life comes from not letting go of that dream.

I realized that everything making me unhappy was in some way tied to the store. To have this type of store I need this kind of life, with this kind of stuff, with this style of house. It made it impossible to be happy with enough. I felt as though to lead that life, to be a lower level next Martha Stewart, THIS was what I needed. I HAD to have this item or that house. The inner torment of my house vs what I wanted had such a hold on me. My house, complete with two year old and tons of home preschool stuff, simply can not look like the homes in design magazines. I can either choose the life I want for Blu or the life I wanted for myself before I even wanted Blu, but I cannot have both. The feeling I had of constant tearing in two directions was truly affecting every aspect of my life.

I was basing every decision on how to make my store work. How many kids I wanted was chosen based on how long it would take to open my store. I was trying to design my house based on design magazines (because to have my store you have to be trendy) and not actual life. I could not succeed in anything because of the tearing between two lives. The want of something I do not have, and the love of something I do.

So my epiphany? Give it up. Just because my store is a good idea does not mean I HAVE to do it. In the grand scheme it was just a childhood dream, a very good one but still. Sometimes you have to give up the plan for the more unplanned. As life twists and turns you sometimes need to release things you’ve held onto. Sometimes you have to drop that rock from down the path when you come to the fork in the road.

Does it make me feel like a self-sacrificing mom? Giving up my dream for my family. Surprisingly, no. I was self-sacrificing when I was tearing myself constantly between the two. When I could find no joy because of the two extremes tearing me THAT was self-sacrificing. Does it mean I’m going to become one of those do all dedicated solely to the family type of moms? Ummmmm, no. A woman needs some things for herself, for fun, for sanity.

I feel so much clearer now. More relaxed. Blu actually WANTS to do school again. I have a new outlook on my house and my life.

Also, I found a blog that just touched me so much. Within an hour of finding it I read two things that I truly NEEDED to read. Check it out, Mommy Matters.

So stay tuned, my new outlook gives new writing ideas. I hope to just capture real life more. So I’ll be the one NOT writing about stores and design, but the one writing while there are duplos shoved in every corner of the living room.

Depression

2010-01-06T20:40:00.001-08:00

It happens. Whether you get it on a clinical can’t-break-out-of-it scale, or just a bit of it now and then, I KNOW it happens to everyone. Just down in the dumps, in a funk, not feelin it, just ugh, we’ve created a million different ways to describe it, to downplay it, to make ourselves comfortable with it. I have it now. I would say I feel undervalued, but really I feel more overvalued. I feel as though I bring nothing to the table. The family table and the world table. Yet my hubby still loves me. I’ve completely slacked on doing any kind of school with Blu, and he won’t even attempt to do it with me if I try. The other day I had a very special dinner, complete with out of town parents visiting and a special reconnected loved one, and I failed. The food was bad. I spent more time cooking then I wanted to, and no idea why, it’s usually a fast recipe. I just feel like a complete failure.

I’ve been in a “Spiritual Friendship” group, and am supposed to be writing or crafting daily, and I just can’t bring myself to do much of anything. The ideas feel like they could burst out of my head, but it’s like I won’t allow myself to go sit in my craft room and actually create.

In more ways then one I’m holding myself back, because I’m just down in the dumps. In a funk. I just feel so ughhh.

Maybe it’s just because the holidays are over, the very anticipated visit with my parents is over, and now it is a new year that I entered with the same ol’ issues.

I’ve been short with Blu. I feel so bad when I’m short tempered with him.

I’ve been neglecting my blog. I have ideas for more regular features, general things I’d like to share with you, a fabulous gift to talk about, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do anything. I’m jokingly blaming it on the computer, since I got a new one (and that isn’t even the main fab gift) “I just want to be on it” I find myself saying. I just want to use it, and enjoy having a computer that really works! It is part that I think, and part that I just don’t want to do anything and being on the computer is easy.

I just feel like a big fat slug. And I absolutely HATE slugs, they make me nearly vomit, seriously.

So, few readers out there, thank you for sticking around and not dropping my blog like a bad habit. Any tips on how to feel like I’m worth something again??

Blog Posts

2009-12-28T15:06:00.000-08:00

Boy I am the Queen of irregular blog posters! I didn't even manage to post a Merry Christmas to everyone!!! I do have a good excuse though, kinda. My husband had a health episode, nothing serious, it just wiped him out so I was on my own. I had to catch up on what wasn't done the day he was in the ER, try to do Christmas things that hadn't gotten done yet, and do the regular everyday things of the house without him. THEN we were involved in the "Blizzard of '09" and I had to shovel the snow, and eeeekkk drive in it!! Now the exhaustion has subsided, I'm mostly caught up, and feel up to posting again, BUT my computer is in serious need of a replacement, and will barely, if I'm lucky, connect to the internet. If I'm not lucky it won't connect at all! All of my photos, my preferred blog writing app, and more are on MY computer! So bare with me. I'm not gone, I'm working on some ideas from my life to use for regular blog posts, and will be posting regularly-ish, hopefully from now on!

Stay tuned, next time I'm on a working computer you get to hear about our Christmas. I will give you one hint, we decided to follow a three gift limit, and BOY did it revolution our Christmas. It was wonderful!!!!!

A Store Listing- mini zine

2009-12-21T18:56:00.001-08:00

I’ve said that I’d actually started utilizing my Etsy shop, and while I sold a fair amount of my finished items to a friend I was able to list a mini-zine today. I did a “doodle comic,” as I call them, about the 24 hour period of 10:30 am Friday to 10:30 am Saturday. It includes a trip to the ER, rushed eating (twice) and waking up to a blizzard!

If you’re interested it’s only a buck, and you can buy one here!

And on a different note, let me show you a picture of my car, preshoveling, more on that later. Right now I’m exhausted, and still recovery from that one 24 hour period! Catching up, PLUS doing the everyday, when hubby is sick, is HARD!

And this is mid-day Saturday, by the time the snow stopped that table had over a foot of snow on it!

More to come, after I sleep. If only I could sleep for dayyyysssssssss.

A Zine Machine

2009-12-17T20:39:00.001-08:00

I’ve started, after many years of saying I was, to write a zine. I’ve always loved zines, I just never took the actual time to write them, or decided to use my money to buy them. I actually told a friend I felt like a zine poser. I SAY I’m into them, but really i know they exist and own like 3. I recently started a Spiritual Friendship group, where we each pick one practice that we find spiritual and do it (almost) daily. I picked crafts AND journaling, because some days I can’t craft and some I can’t journal, so between the two I should be covered.

My journaling quickly turned into actual zine writing, and I have some mixed feelings on it.

1- I am enjoying that instead of writing random thoughts, or following a journal prompt, I am taking time to really think about each subject. Because I made my zine a larger format (legal sized paper folded in half) each page takes a fair amount to fill. So instead of jotting two or three sentences I find that I am really contemplating subjects throughout the day. The actual zine writing is going slowly (I have maybe four pages done.) but the spiritual contemplative factor is going very well.

2- Since I am writing these longish entries and being so contemplative I feel like I am missing out on some of the stupid everyday memories that I would usually be journaling. For example how the other day Blu smelled my feet, freshly out of some very toasty slippers, and said “mommy feet bath!” then after more consideration “mommy feet died!” I’m not making top ten lists, or silly stories. I feel like I am missing out on some things I’d enjoy writing about. Now, obviously it’s my zine and I can write what I want, and maybe I just need to start writing those things in my zine!

I am quickly finding that as I focus on my zine, contemplating and writing, I think about zines more in general. My zine collection has gone from having three I got 5 years ago, to maybe a dozen? I got three tiny zines from one Etsy seller, and one GREAT Thank-God-For-Them Etsy seller had a PIF zine destash. And I have more then once spent my last few bucks on a zine. Just today I sold some of my crafted stash (a bit of a delay on actually opening an online store, but it cleared the stash and gives me a fresh start, plus gave me some cash.) The cash was supposed to go directly to my card, $5 over here and there, plus interest rates and it starts to add up, more then I’d like for a card I try to have no balance on. Instead, in less then an hour, I was already on Etsy zine shopping (I LOVE looking at online distros, but it’s to much temptation to overspend.) And yes I already ordered one.

I feel like I went from a zine poser to a true zinester in a matter of a month. I even BEGGED my husband to do a zine challenge with me, anything made using one single piece of paper, due by Christmas. His response was “Why can’t you do it by yourself.” I replied with “Well that’s just stupid, where’s the challenge in that?”

So I’m off, I have two zines to write for, and got a new zine in the mail today to read. (The La-La Theory, issue 7, a neat little zine about language and linguistics.)

And to anyone who misses my photos, and is sick of my pictureless posts, I actually shot some photos at the park this week. The cold weather, and a two year old who constantly says “No go! STAY HOME!,” has just been keeping me from photo moments worth sharing.

Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

2009-12-15T07:44:00.000-08:00

I LOVE this soup, and it couldn’t be easier!

Ingredients:

As much cooked diced chicken as you want, and the budget will allow. If it’s a tight money week, just use a little!

1 large jar of salsa (not a giant Sam’s Club jug, just a standard large size)

1 carton of Chicken Broth (I don’t have any in my cabinet to check, because I used it when I made the soup) but I believe it’s a quart)

Cheese- Velveeta cut into chunks, a jar of cheese dip, or grated cheddar, your choice.

Bag of frozen corn (I usually leave out the corn, because it gives me an upset tummy, but it does taste good!)

Optional: Can of Black Beans (I usually add this when I’m leaving out the corn.)

How to:

Pour all the ingredients into a large pot. Heat until you’re ready to eat!!

Note: If using grated cheese you will either have to stir it ALOT to make it creamy, or you can just use it as a topper in each bowl after the soup is cooked.

Also, I have never used jarred cheese dip for this. I’ve used a leftover pack of cheese sauce from some taco kit, and I’ve used grated, and I’ve used Velveeta. The original recipe calls for a whole jar of cheese sauce, so I included that option. However I personally wouldn’t use a whole jar anyway. When I used just the small packet it was MORE then enough, and I’d estimate it at about 3-4 tablespoons worth.

Stick Weaving

2009-12-14T15:43:00.001-08:00

I was doing a good ol’ google search on sticking weaving, I was thinking weaving WITH sticks, and found this person who weaves sticks.

Here’s some of my favorites, but the page has TONS:

Be sure to check it out!

It’s about Time

2009-12-10T06:54:00.001-08:00

This post that is, it is actually about time. I’ve been thinking lately, I do do that sometimes, about my life. Where I want it to be vs where it is. As a mom, I tend to say the issue is time. “Not enough time.” How many times have you said that? And, more importantly, was it actually true?

Years ago I read an article, maybe in a miniatures magazine, about a woman who had to do a project. For her project she decided to prove she had no spare time. Any time she had a spare moment she’d write the length of time on a woodchip. Her thought was that when the project was due she’d have a small handful of woodchips, and proof she had no extra time. Instead she had a large box full! She discovered she DID have time, but it was in 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there. Woodchips of time she called them. This article had an affect on me, though I tend to use the same excuse “no time!”

I’d love to be crafty all the time. To make art my life, and my living, like Martha Stewart, Katie Brown, Noreen Crone Finlay, Amy Butler, Anna Marie Horner, etc etc. The list clearly goes on and on. And when I think about what is stopping me I always say “time. Time is what stops me.” But is it really? Or am I letting time stop me? Not to toot my own horn, I’m am usually very humble about it, but talent and know how, are NOT what is stopping me.

I know one thing, if I spent half as much time making things as I do talking about them, shopping for supplies, or looking for ideas (Cause you know, I just don’t have enough of my own already. It’s not like I’m already overwhelmed with ideas and future projects or anything.) I’d be making more projects then you can imagine. Truth is, I just spend to much time fantasizing and not enough actually doing. All that supply shopping, is 99.9% of the time, pretend shopping. I almost never actually buy anything. I spend hours after Blu goes to sleep, and anytime he is actually playing alone (which is rare) browsing the web, looking for neat supplies, viewing websites, and reading over a hundred blogs. (I really DO follow that many.) .

Which also brings me to blogging. Why don’t I blog daily? Two things, “time” and lack of things to write about. Is time really stopping me though? If I have time to read over a hundred blogs, why don’t I have time to write just one? Now the lack of things to write about is true. Unless you want one liners about what Blu did or said. Despite my constant complaint of time, my life is actually very boring.

So where is it you want to be in your life? What is stopping you? And is it REALLY stopping you? Or do you only have wood chips?

Present Shopping- Stress Free!!

2009-12-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

Whether you shop for Hanukkah, Christmas, or even Yule, shopping for a lot of presents can be pretty stressful. Every year you probably say to yourself “Next year I’m going to have it more together. I’m going to spend $x on Christmas a month” "or “I’m going to buy two presents a month, instead of stressing myself like this!” But if you’re like me you find yourself saying that every year, but every year Thanksgiving passes and you can count the presents you have ready on one hand, if you have any at all!

If your family gets paid every two weeks you might have just found yourself with an “extra” paycheck recently. If your bills are mostly caught up then this is your stress free shopping chance! Here’s my 5 step method:

Step 1: Take a sheet of paper, regular printer paper works fine! Fold it in half lengthwise, then fold those halves in half. Do the same width wise. You’ll have 16 sections, on each side of the paper.

Now in each section write write the name of ONE person you are shopping for. If you shop for a whole family enter the family name in a box. For close family that you may also be doing a stocking for, next to their first box write their name in a second box. If you know you’ll have to buy a gift for a gift exchange make a box for that too.

For example:

Dad

Dad Stocking

Blu

Blu Stocking

The Smith Family

You have space for 32 people! You can also use a few boxes for supplies, decorations needed, or even meals to use for holiday potlucks!

Step 2: In each person’s box write either what you want to buy them, and/or what you want to spend on them. If you don’t know how much something costs take a reasonable guess, or check out some online stores for price ideas. I find that some items may be over my guess, but some are below, and the expense I estimated is usually pretty accurate.

Such as:

Dad- Tool Box $25

Step 3: After you have all your people listed, ideas or budget for each one, and a clean mind of what you are buying go to the store! Take a pencil and try to go when you have PLENTY of time, and your payment strategy figured out. Paying cash? Go to the ATM first. Using your credit and paying later? Make sure you have the card. If you haven’t used the card in awhile call the company, make sure it is safe to use and verify that you will be using it. When working retail I once helped a lady who rarely used her card, when she tried to make two large purchases in a small time frame they froze her card! That definitely goes against the stress-free method. If you made your sheet well then you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re getting and how much you’ll be spending.

If you make all or most of your gifts this still works! Write down what you are making each person, or want to make, and the supplies you need. Then make your store trip a craft store.

BUT, here’s my trick, don’t go to just any store! Either select a store with a wide variety of various items, or the mall. You want one stop. I especially recommend outlet type stores. Tuesday Morning is my fav! For that $10 budget for a coworker you can get a vase with a $50 value. Or try a place like $5 Below. If you’re not familiar check their website to see if there is one near you. They are a dollar store where everything is $5 or less. Some of it is crappy dollar store stuff, and some of it has a high value and they got some kind of deal. Right now for $5 you can get a “Cozi” which is a generic Snuggie! I once saw a purse with the original $50 price tag still attached for $5! I’ve seen $20 head phones for $5. Try to think of a store near you that has something for everyone, AND even small dinky items for stocking stuffers all in one place. If you can’t find a super great store like Tuesday Morning or 5 Below, then just hit a Target, Kmart, or dare I say the W-Mart. (I can’t bring myself to say the name, I hate that place) If you are the type who gives cashmere sweaters, crystal wine stoppers, and fur coats then go to wherever you go to buy that stuff, cause I have NO idea.

Step 4: Now, you’re at the store, you have a sheet of ideas, you have a payment strategy, a few hours of time, and preferably no kids or hurried husband, go to town! Take your time and go down each aisle that has stuff for on your list. If at the mall go in stores that are suitable, and try to combine multiple gifts into one store. Skip the stores you don’t don’t have any gifts you need, and skip the ones that tend to be pricey and may or may not have something in your budget. Skip looking at anything that isn’t a gift. This isn’t a time to compare prices on your household wish list, or to drool over the necklace you want. If one store is pretty and fun to go in, but you doubt you’ll find a gift there, save it for another day!

Step 5: One more small part of the plan, every single item that gets put in your cart is accounted for. This is where the pencil comes in. When you select something write it down on your sheet as to who it is for, and the cost. When the person is done draw a very visible check mark over their square, but make sure you can still read what you’ve written. This serves so many purposes. You don’t overspend on anyone and you can stick to your set budget. You don’t accidentally buy someone more then the number of gifts you intended. You can see at a glance who is left to shop for. You know if people have the budget you set. Perhaps you want a set of siblings to get a pretty even value of gifts, but one is $10 under, you know you need to pick more for them. You’ll see and be able the visualize the stuffed stockings. If it’s full but well under budget then find small items or expensive chocolates. If it’s empty but under budget find some big things to finish it off. And if those reasons aren’t good enough, when you get home you know exactly what was purchased for who so you can wrap, check the list, and smack a gift label on it!

If no one sabotages your shopping then you can be DONE in a matter of a few easy hours! Why would I say someone may sabotage it? During my shopping spree I sent my Mom a picture message of a present, with my sister-in-laws name and a question mark as the message. She saw the item, instantly thought of my niece, and proceeded to give me the wrong size, AND it turns out my sister-in-law wouldn’t even like the things! I was talking to my mom today, and she says “So did you get those for B?”

“B?” I said “ Those are for F!” Which led to discovering she sabotaged me, and I went from 99.99% done, to having two more gifts to get instead of one! Since the store has an all sales are final policy it also slightly dented my budget. Otherwise using this method I spent about an hour and a half in one store. I bought gifts for over 6 people, plus 4 stockings. In the same trip, in a matter of moments, I could have gotten wrapping paper, ribbon, gift tags, last minute decorations, and even a snack if I had needed it! One benefit also of this is that you see the size of everything at once. If you are planning to travel over the holidays you can see in a glance if everything will fit in your car or not. If you need to fit 3 kids, plus luggage and gifts in a SUV or minivan then maybe two shopping carts full isn’t a good idea.

And one warning, if you buy your kid a super bouncy ball, and it is raining and dark, you just might drop the bag just enough for the ball to escape and roll away into the night. You will have to decide if you want to chase after it or just buy another one. If you decide to go after it you might have to get your pants wet while you search under a car, and you might have to get your shoes wet to step in a giant puddle. Might I recommend just buying another one?

BBQ Biscuit Bake

2009-12-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

This is by far my easiest, cheapest, AND most husband requested meal!

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef or turkey

1 cup of BBQ sauce

1 diced onion

1 tube of refrigerator biscuits (like Pillsbury, or Grands) OR about the same amount of homemade biscuit dough. Or even use leftover dinner rolls!

1/2 to 1 cup of grated cheese

How to:

Brown the meat with the diced onion. Drain. I like to drain mine in an actual colander. Takes only a few minutes, but gets almost all of the grease out!

Put the meat back in the pan or a bowl and stir in BBQ sauce.

Spread into lightly greased 8x8 or 9x9 pan.

Top the meat mixture with cheese, and then top with biscuits!

Bake according to biscuit directions.

Note: You can also put the biscuits underneath the meat mixture. This is easier with biscuit dough. Just grease the pan well and spread the dough in, then top with meat and cheese. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

The Problem with Separate Blog Writers

2009-12-01T07:11:00.001-08:00

When I write blog posts, I don’t use Blogger. I use a separate program called ‘Live Writer’ which is SO much easier and nicer to use. I can center photos in a a single click, add hyperlinks almost as easily, and easily see saved drafts all together. I love it for my blog writing, but there is one downside.

I always forget to log into blogger and check out comments!! I just remembered today, I was cooking breakfast and thought “gosh my blog has been awful quiet lately, why isn’t anyone commenting?” Getting downcast I realized “Oh duh!!! I have to go check for them!!” So I did, and over a week ago the lovely Orange Juice left me an award!!!!!! I GOT AN AWARD! I could scream it from the mountain tops! When I saw the comment I couldn’t wait to log in and read about it and see which one. So much so that I decided to put off workboxes, wait to get Blu in school clothes and log in RIGHT now and look.

So Thank YOU Orange Juice for the award:

And when I get back from Blu’s school today and finishing grocery shopping I’ll share the award with a blog I love. There are a lot to choose from, I follow well over a hundred!

Little known fact, Kristi from Orange Juice has more then once written to me by accident! I just happen to share a name with a writer on Today’s Housewife, and she has confused us more then once. LOL We laugh about it. And now I’ve embarrassed her and she’ll probably never give me an award again. Hummmmm…

Planning

2009-11-29T12:17:00.001-08:00

Do you ever feel like you spend hours planning? I feel like that, because I KNOW I do. I spent about 4 hours today planning. Planning what? A one week unit study, and the workboxes to carry it out. A two week menu plan, with 16 dinners, 10 lunches, 10 breakfasts, baked goods, special treats, and smoothie flavors. I plan our meals openly, so that instead of a certain meal a certain day we can choose based on what we want to eat. Certain meals are weekend meals because they don’t reheat well, cook for a long time, or don’t leave a lot of leftovers. I also have one or two “special” meals that cost a bit extra. Most of my meals are $5 or less, not including the meat. (We order hormone free local meat in large amounts from a local butcher.) My two week budget is usually$225, and $80 minimum of that has to pay for our meat, and a water filter we got ripped off buying several years ago. (Imagine a stupid water filter costing about $1500!!! We got screwed.) So my actual in the store budget is $145. I almost never go over.

Unlike a lot of people who eat “frugally” our meals are large, most contain meat, and we also get a lot of snacks, baked goods, and more. We almost always have dessert.

For the next 2+ weeks our dinners will include:

Minestrone Soup with rolls

Rueben Sandwiches

Burritos

Chinese Chicken Salad

Spaghetti and Meatballs with spicy brussel sprouts and garlic bread

Chicken Crescents

Sloppy Joes

Split Pea Soup with rolls or biscuits

Crock Pot Lasagna

Chili

Honey Chicken with rolls

Cheeseburger Pie

Slow Cooker Pork Roast with glazed carrots

BBQ Biscuit Dish with side salad

Country Ribs, with rice and beans

And Easy Tortilla Soup.

Our lunches are various mixes of fruit, crackers, sandwiches, and soups. And Breakfast is various basic stuff. Our special treats include Easy Doughnuts, Spinach Dip, and a Stuffed Bread based on a medieval recipe (did I mention this week is Knight themed?)

All for about $200. That’s why planning meals takes so long. I stick to a VERY firm and tight budget.

Over the next two weeks I’ll share with you recipes for the above foods, then you can easily have two weeks of planned meals too! So stay tuned!

I really need to….

2009-11-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

Make Thanksgiving decor- I’m having 13 people here!

Update my blogroll (I subscribe to 104!!, Follow with friend connect 61, and don’t even know how many I get by email)

Sew- My friend and I are doing a “ping pong quilt” meaning we take turns doing a row on each others quilts, until it’s done. I’ve had hers since before Halloween, or maybe at Halloween, either way…

Figure out how I’m going to cook two separate turkeys. 27 pounds total!!

Work out- It’s been a lonnngggggg while

Buy a new journal- Well I don’t really NEED to, I have dozens, but every time I resolve to journal more I feel the need to buy a new one and start fresh.

Take a nap- exhausted

What do you really need to do?

Blu Went Shopping

2009-11-21T10:17:00.001-08:00

His poor little car was loaded down.

So full he lost some, and had to resort to using a roof rack.

But at least that worked, and he was able to park his car.

Crafts

2009-11-19T20:09:00.001-08:00

Mostly here on the blog I talk about homeschool and parenting stuff. But did you know I’m CRAZY into crafts? I spend every free moment making, designing, planning, or seeking cool inspiration. And you know what else? I ~~want~~ need to crack down and get my Etsy store going. Which brings up another, did you know… I’ve had an Etsy store, set up, waiting, for over 2 years. Part of me says “ugghhhhh another mommy blogger opens an Etsy store, how common.” But you know what. I don’t consider myself a mommy blogger. I mean technically I AM, but I’ve been blogging (this is my third active blog, two old ones are now defunct for various reasons) for over 5 years! Most mommy bloggers recently jumped on the bandwagon. And no I don’t think there is anything wrong with mommy bloggers. I just hate to feel like I to jumped on a bandwagon, especially when I didn’t. And the Etsy part, have most bloggers had a store set up ready to go and waiting for two years!??!

Recently a friend was in my basement (was a craft studio and is stashed with stuff) and after revealing my giant stash of handmade soaps, huge bin of hand crocheted stuff my mom gave me to sell, and various “oh yeah, that’s to sell one day” completed crafts, she says asked me what I did with dominos. Crafts wise that is. Because she had found one laying around. “All kinds of jewelry and stuff. Plus in assemblage, plus once I glued it on an ugly doll for a face, but that’s not my style anymore.” And I turned around, grabbed a box, and wall-ah! Said “See.” The box had at least a dozen completed, all they need is to be photographed and packaged, ready to sell domino necklaces.

Today was the first meeting of a “Spiritual Friendship” group for one of the churches I go to. We all choose a practice, anything we want even if it isn’t usually considered religious, and practice it preferably daily for about 6 months. We meet monthly to discuss it, and also are doing a particular meditative book. I chose for my practice to be crafts and journaling. Some days I can’t craft, and some I can’t journal, so between them I can do one or the other every day. Thinking and discussing with these women my choice I couldn’t help but think about the PILES of stuff I have laying around waiting to be listed on Etsy. When I got home I had to order the book we’ll be using, and spent my last bit of spending cash. (Hubby gives me a small amount very pay period for whatever I want to buy. Half of it usually goes to extra groceries!) I was really hoping to buy cool doll stuff ,(I have several cool collectible dolls, but you didn’t know that either!) photography stuff (like a 620 to 35 mm adaptor for my Brownie that I’m trying to get to work) or tights (five below was a gorgeous array of colors, including the good thick knit ones!) Instead I bought a book. So I have tons of crafts laying around, a serious shortage of spending cash, and there seems to be an obvious solution. Wouldn’t you agree? (And Lorie, if you are reading this, that spending money shortage is why your stamps, yes plural, are carved but still sitting here! Be patient with me! If it helps they are my favorite carvings to date!)

So what does this very run on sentenced ramble mean? I am going to, finally, open my Etsy shop. It’ll include crafts I made, vintage stuff I find, and even some cool craft supplies (artsy themed variety packs anyone?) Even some prints of my good photos. When will it be open? I have no idea! Hopefully in time for some last minute Christmas gifts. Maybe? Definitely in time for spending any Christmas money you receive!

And followers, I want to ask, if you follow me for homeschool, my general writing, or my rare posts of crafts/photography/cool finds? Sometimes I consider doing a more design artsy oriented blog, but homeschool and Blu are such a big part of my life. I’m not a fan of artists who barely mention their kids. Also followers, I’m not sure how loyally you read my blog, but I want to tell you how much I TRULY appreciate you. Every time I see a new follower my heart skips a beat. I love you, just for following me.

(PS. Do you think this post counts as my first journal practice?? I’m going to say….. yes.)

Whatever happened to Thanksgiving?

2009-11-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t believe my eyes when just two days after Halloween the stores all had Christmas stuff, some even had the Christmas music! I can’t help but think about how we seemed to have gone from a day of greed and candy to a day of greed and presents, while completely skipping over the day to be thankful. The day that we thank God for the food we have to eat, the friends we buy presents for, the feet we use to go trick or treating.

Sure Thanksgiving to some people is about gluttony and sloth, but really isn’t it what YOU make of it? I’m not talking turkeys here. I’m talking gratitude. Instead of doing daily Christmas crafts, why not do a gratitude tree? Why not make surprise gifts for people you are thankful for? If it’s about gratitude to you then that is what it’s about.

I understand some people are completely skipping Thanksgiving because their kids are showing interest in Christmas, and want to introduce the true meaning of the holiday. But does that really warrant skipping the holiday in between. Don’t you think God wants us to take some time just being thankful? Even if you don’t believe in God, don’t you think there should be time betweens the hub bub and costumes of Halloween and the hub bub and parties of Christmas to just rest? To just think about everything. Is teaching kids about Christmas really worth skipping over teaching them to be thankful?

Am I alone in this? I’m sorry, I LOVE Christmas, but I’m going to take November to teach my kid to be grateful. We’re going to discuss the harvest and how we always have enough to eat. We’re going to talk about the daily beauty of the falling leaves and changing colors. We’ll talk about how the earth needs the change in weather. And we will NOT talk about Christmas trees until after Thanksgiving.

Trying Something New-

2009-11-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

Well two things actually. I’ve been thinking about Blu’s eating habits, and what we tend to eat for lunch and I’ve been pretty unhappy with it. Last night when we read “Bread and Jam for Frances” and I read the lunches they listed I nearly cried! Blu and I almost always have leftovers.

When Blu was a baby I made ALL of his baby food. He had jarred food exactly twice. While we were traveling. I kept baggies in the freezer, and bowls in the fridge, with everything from apple sauce to zucchini. Every meal I’d put three different foods into his separated dish. As he started eating exactly what I eat we’ve gotten in a rut. We almost always have a fresh hot breakfast, and our leftovers do have quite a bit of variety, but when it’s time to eat lunch it usually consists of putting a container in the microwave and then dishing it out.

So I decided that from now on I’m going to give him a MINIMUM of three different foods for lunch. And I don’t mean ingredients, my husband pointed out today that our lunch was much more then three “foods.” Today we ate ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins) tomato soup, and crackers topped with cream cheese and apple slivers. And he ate almost all of it! He left literally an inch of celery on his plate. Lunch was an enjoyable experience, and he didn’t fight it at all. It was very successful.

The second thing we tried was separate quiet time. Blu gave up napping, most days, a few months ago, but I KNOW his little brain needs a rest. Sleep in general is a HUGE fight with him. I spend an hour usually getting him to sleep at night. He absolutely cannot go to sleep by himself. So many people have smart remarks to make to this, but honestly this boy came out like that! When he was a newborn I’d spend over an hour getting him to go to sleep, and he’d sleep for maybe 15 minutes. He’d scream like you were killing him if you even attempted to put him in the crib, cradle, and yes even the swing.

So I’ve been thinking for awhile now that maybe we need to instate a daily quiet time. He doesn’t have to sleep, or even lay down, but he does have to be in his bed and quiet. We tried it today and it did not go well. He spent the entire 15 minutes (a time I decided to start with, and up it from there) screaming like I had abandoned him and he’d never see me again. I’m still going to try tomorrow. We’re going to read a quick book, then go our separate ways for 15 minutes. And, No, I don’t expect it to go any better. We shall see though what tomorrow holds!

Day Five, am I Still alive?

2009-11-06T17:39:00.001-08:00

Here it is Friday!!! Time to see if this worked for a whole week!

Our schedule is:

Count Pennies

Create a Picture- An old game I bought where there are tiles, about 2x2 inches, with parts of a picture on them. It’s made by Ravensburger, and I have NO idea how old it actually is. I’m guessing it’s from the 80’s, based on the pictures on the box. You can freeform pictures using them. It has parts of a house, different roof pieces, people, fields, sky, trees, etc etc. Blu LOVES it, and I won’t lie, I tend to play with it without him too! There is ONE listed on eBay right now, $25 buy it now. I honestly say it’s worth it!

Mr Potato Head and our giant case of parts

Read a Book

Counting Pumpkins- I’m not entirely sure where this came from, because I already cut it out and assembled it. It’s just a mini book where you can count up to seven pumpkins, each page adding one more. So you count one through seven. It all hooks on just one little binder ring.

Fall Booklet with Daddy- An Emergent reader book from the internet, it’s from Reading A-Z. Reading A-Z is a great site, but is by subscription. I’ve never had a subscription, maybe I got this book as a free trial? You can give them just your email address and get 30 free books and worksheets! I’ve had it printed out and in the “Fall” file for quite awhile. Maybe someone gave it to me already printed? I have received boxes of stuff, print outs and things, from retired teachers. Our copy is black and white, so they can color it and/or read it. Hopefully both.

And? We did them ALL! We had the first several boxes done by breakfast, started box 3 of Mr P, and then went to a book sale, came back finished the boxes, and enjoyed our day!

Blu is NOT enjoying the pennies like he was the first day. I think I may move it to counting dimes, and just do it once a week. It seems like he lost interest in it.

He create a very sky themed picture, and enjoyed it.

He only played with Mr P a very short time, because I was trying to get to the book sale before traffic, and was hoping it might tire him out enough to want to come back and take a nap. He did play with it long enough to count it as a completed box though.

After the sale we did box four and read a book. Actually a page of a book. Since we have been having problems with daytime reading I read one single page of the Jesse Bear counting book. I figured with one page it is short, it’s not introducing to many numbers at once, and maybe he’ll stick with it better. He DID! It totally worked! He was very surprised when I stopped reading after only one page, and was going to ask for more, instead of the usually asking me to stop.

Then we did our counting pumpkins book. Looking at the book again it clear says it is from Literacy Activities.com which I can’t seem to find anywhere. It seems to be now defunct. Keeping in mind I’ve been saving school files since before Blu was before, I have no idea how old this booklet even is! There are also websites all over sharing single files and crediting Literacy Activities, so …

Daddy and Blu colored, sorta they didn’t finish, the Fall book. Blu was being VERY precise in his coloring, and was tired of it before the book was done. But he did quite a bit, so I’m considering it a mission accomplished!

Since Blu was SO good about doing his workboxes, even asking to do boxes instead of eating or playing his favorite games, I let him pick a surprise from the “Big Surprise Box!” We have two boxes of rewards. One box is really dinky surprises, all valued well under a dollar, like a small sheet of stickers or a single party favor toy, he gets these if he is just exceptionally behaved all day. If he does something just extraordinarily wonderful we gets one at random. He gets two or three over the course of an average week. The second box is bigger prizes, things up to a dollar or $2.50 in value, things like small toys, store bought mini books to decorate, etc. He gets these never more then once a week. Essentially if he gets enough small toys and is still very good he can get one big one at the end of the week. He’s only ever gotten a big toy twice, maybe three times, in the couple months we’ve been doing it. Today as his big surprise he picked a toy harmonica (notice it’s a blowing toy? I’ve been talking about that a lot this week with his speech delay.)

So we did it! We actually did it!!!!! Five days, completing six boxes, we stuck with it a whole week!!!!

Pumpkin Muffins

2009-11-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

Remember how Blu and I Muffin Bombed the neighbors? Well the muffins have gotten rave reviews, and Blu has been chowing down on them, so I wanted to share the recipe with you!

The official recipe says it makes 18-20, I managed to make 33!!! But they can freeze, so ….

Pumpkin Date (Or in my case chocolate chip) Muffins

I substituted the dates for chocolate chips, and the walnuts for chopped up green pumpkin seeds (the seed inside the white shell) and they are GOOODDDDD. I imagine they are quite good the original way too.

Ingredients:

3 1/3 cup flour

2 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t cloves

1/2 t nutmeg

2/3 c shortening

2 2/3 cup sugar (I used 1 1/3 white, and 1 1/3 brown)

4 eggs

2 c pumpkin

2/3 c water (if using canned pumpkin, my home cooked pumpkin required no water)

2/3 c chopped walnuts

2/3 c chopped dates

Preheat oven to 350, and place paper wrappers in muffin tins. If you want to, premix the dry ingredients (not the sugar.) I always just measure right into the bowl, I never premix.

Cream shortening and sugar. It doesn’t get very fluffy, it’s more like wet sand.

Add eggs, one at a time.

Add pumpkin, and water if necessary. Be warned my pumpkin was home cooked and thawed from frozen, and this part could have been VERY messy, it was filling my stand mixer’s bowl and was VERY wet.

Add dry ingredients slowly.

Add dates and nuts, or if you’re going the sweet route chocolate chips and nut.

Pour into paper lined cups, and bake for 20 to 30 minutes. My oven needs replacing and it only took 20 minutes, you might want to check them at about 15 if you have a good oven. They will look a rich orange-brown color, and be visibly cooked. If the center looks gooey, give them a few more minutes.

Cool for a few minutes and remove from tray to finish cooling.

Want a tip? I use a ladle to fill my muffin tins. Depending on the size of your ladle it might take a half or a full scoop to fill your muffin tin, but it is so much cleaner then any other way I’ve tried. Just scoop and pour! You can also use a batter bowl, the bowls with spouts, but I find they tend to drip from the spout and make a mess on the counter.

I warn you they are good! It’s hard to limit the muffin intake. Enjoy!

Day Four, Is it a Bore?

2009-11-05T14:55:00.000-08:00

It’s day four, and honestly I rarely stick with anything 4 days in a row.

Our schedule is:

Color and make a large jointed scarecrow. I’ve had this is my “Fall” file for awhile, so I’m not sure where it came from. It may have been copied from one of my books, given to me, found online, I have no idea. It doesn’t say anything clearly as to where it came from. It’s a large jointed scarecrow, you color it and put it together with brads.

Read Book- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and for him to read Chicka Chicka ABC board book. He likes to read his own book while I read aloud, and I think this may be a smart idea, cause they are so similar.

Coloring Page Cutting and Blowing- We’re going to cut or tear tissue in fall colors and blow them onto the A is for Acorn coloring page from First School.

Stamps

Count Pennies

Fantacolor- With Daddy- A neat peg picture toy. We LOVE it, and so does every kid who visits!

And, did I stick with it through day four? I did!!! I don’t have picture of us doing the work, because my camera battery died, and was charging while we worked. But

We colored the scarecrow this morning, and I assembled it this evening, while he and Daddy did their box together.

We DID read the books, and he started out well enough, but I ended up reading aloud while he played. Oh well.

For our coloring page we cut and tore, but didn’t blow. After one piece of tissue I could see that he has graduated from blowing tissue, one blow and they ALL went flying. So we did “pat pat pat” and poked them on.

We stamped, he stamped himself more then the paper I think so there isn’t much art to show.

He counted his pennies, and once again said he didn’t want to keep them. I think he wants to move up to quarters. He already, ages ago, wouldn’t let me give him just quarters to spend he insisted on a dollar bill.

And then we muffin bombed some neighbors. Apparently when the recipe said it makes 18-20 muffins it meant it makes 33. So we shared. To muffin bomb you just do similar to a ding dong ditch, or place it between the storm door and front door and don’t do anything. If you live in an area like us, and people would be suspicious then label them with where they came from. I labeled ours with a simple label, our name and address, then on the back of the bag wrote what kind they were and listed the major allergy ingredients.

(The finger is concealing the address)

Daddy and Blu did their box too, and that leaves us with just one more day to see if we stick with this for a whole week!!! The more I look at workbox stuff online the more I think that a 12 box system may actually work for us. So if this whole week works out….

Day Three, Is it Still for Me?

2009-11-04T18:41:00.001-08:00

Today is day Three, Wednesday, of the new way of schooling. A relaxed, crack down approach, using workboxes.

Our schedule was:

Apple Stamping- using an actual apple and paint to stamp

Felt Board- we have a HUGE set of felt board items, because my Mom is in overachiever who made them over the years.

Bubble Painting- using soapy water and a straw to create bubble prints.

A Ziploc Tracer- These are all over the web lately, and I’ve been in love with them for ages (even back when my now 12 year old cousin was Blu’s age.) You squirt a whole bunch of paint, or shaving cream, or whatever, into a ziploc, squeeze out as much air as possible, then seal duck tape the top shut. The kids can use their fingers to trace in the paint.

Count Pennies- quickly becoming Blu’s favorite

Read a Book- With Daddy!

And did we achieve it?? Ummm, almost.

We tried the apple stamping, but the apple wouldn’t stamp well, so Blu painted the apple, and then the paper and said he was painting apples on the paper. And yes you read that correctly. He painted THE apple.

Felt Board- success! He loved it! I need to make some clothes for my people shapes. He used circle to give them all eyes, and more humorous, belly buttons! No pics though.

We skipped the Bubble Blowing. He’s getting over a cold, and still has congestion and a bad cough (bad enough that we visited the Dr today, but he’s okay.) I didn’t think excessive blowing would be a good idea. We played with his pattern block set instead.

He seemed to enjoy the tracer, but didn’t play with it long. I bet he’ll ask for it tomorrow though, he does that. It’s orange paint. I’m teaching him to say orange, and he’s getting it, but he was just saying “redyellow!!” Which, come on, how smart is that!! especially since I did not teach him about color mixxing yet when he started that.

We counted pennies, but he said he didn’t want to keep them and put them in his bank, which was shocking.

Then his last box, read a book with Daddy. He would NOT do. He doesn’t generally like to read during the day. He associates reading with sleeping, and thinks reading means he was to take a nap. (Anyone have advice on how to fix that? I tell him he doesn’t have to nap, I read excitedly, I read fun books.) I think part of the problem though is that Nick is not the best out loud reader, he can be kind of monotone. And also we had gone grocery shopping, thrift shopping, to the doctor, and he was worn out by the time we were all home and he could sit down to do the box.

All in all, I’m labeling this day a success!! Let’s find out if tomorrow will be to!

Day Two!

2009-11-03T15:25:00.001-08:00

Today our activities are:

Apple Tree cutting Story- you cut a paper plate as you tell the story. This one is based on the song I’ve shared before “way up high in the apple tree…”

Fingerprint leaves

Fall Themed Beading

Go outside and Blow leaves across the sidewalk (if it’s rainy we’ll blow leaves across the floor.) The motion of blowing, with an O mouth shape, help activate muscles and can be good for speech issues.

A Leaf Matching Game- I took a bag of silk leaves from Dollar Tree, traced some onto index cards, and you have to match the shape of the leaf to the outline.

Count Pennies- with Daddy!

Did we achieve them all? YES!!! Two days in a row! I feel like we’re on a roll! We got three of them done before lunch, the other two done by 1 and the one with daddy was finished when Daddy got home. (And yes daddy did his box yesterday too)

The cutting story was, mehhh, so-so. He kinda enjoyed it, maybe? He sat and watched, but didn’t get much out of it. Though he did ask me to do it again. I don’t think I’ll be doing another one anytime soon.

I have NO pictures of our fingerprint project, because it required to much Mommy help to take pictures and then has already been carried off to a new home by the mailman, but will have the new owner send me a picture.

For our fall themed beading I discovered we didn’t have many fall themed beads, and if you go into a store after Halloween you must be looking for Christmas stuff. Not one (two crafts stores and Target) had any Fall themed stuff left. They had a miniscule amount of Halloween, which was already up to 70% off. We just used some kinda sorta fall colored pony beads, 20 in all, and a pipe cleaner. At first Blu made some AB patterns, without being asked, but when I said how great the pattern was he decided to pull his dummy routine and act like he couldn’t do it anymore.

I decided we should blow a leaf inside, and he LOVED blowing a leaf from our nature table across the table. We played a soccer like game, making the leaves go back and forth. We had leaf races. We had a good time.

He did his leaf matching almost flawlessly. I didn’t notice exactly how similar two leaves were, and that messed him up. I told him to show me his proud face, and this is what I got,

More of a dumbstruck look really but oh well.

Now, let’s see if we manage to complete them all again tomorrow!

Day One of the New style

2009-11-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

So Today, Monday we had the following activities scheduled:

Apple Mobile- A page in a book of September Arts and Crafts Ideas (my book is missing it’s cover, so I can’t find the exact one online to link to)

Count 10 pennies

Fall shape Puzzles– These were diecuts I bought at Dollar Tree, then laminated, and cut into random pieces.

Acorn Sensory Tub- This is an old plastic frozen food tub that I put a bunch of silk leaves into and a fistful of acorns. He digs around and collects the acorns.

Read a book- I’m going to let him pick one from the shelf, instead of forcing a particular title on him

P is For Panthers Sticker Dot Sheet- With Daddy!- I’m using the P is For Panthers page from Making Learning Fun, and then they apply stickers (bright garage sale stickers because that’s what we have!) into the circle spaces. They have tons of other teams too.

What did we accomplish?

Of our 6 scheduled activities we had FOUR done before breakfast! When I told Blu that I had workboxes for us to do AFTER breakfast he said “No eat! Box!!” And stuck by his word, until that is he saw the oatmeal I heat up anyway. I had cracked down a bit more even after my post yesterday and made a very basic set of workbox numbers and schedule strips. We literally do a box, stick the number on the strip. He likes it, and we call them stickers.

Our first box, coloring the apple mobile. I had it prestrung, and all he had to do was color it, then gluestick on one little verse:

“Apples are a Tasty Treat-

Crunchy, sweet and fun to eat.

And with each and every bite,

Your teeth stay healthy, clean, and white”

He barely colored it, literally one or two small scribbles on each side of each piece, but oh well.

Counting Pennies worked FABULOUSLY!!! First we counted to take them out of a ziploc baggie I put them in, then lined them and count them, THEN counted them as he put them one by one into his hand to put in his piggy bank.

Putting the puzzle together.

For his sensory tub he barely played with it. He reached in grabbed a fistful of acorns, dropped them back in and put the lid back on. The whole thing lasted maybe a minute, I didn’t even have time to grab the camera and turn it on.

Then for a book he got to pick one off the shelf, he picked Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein, and I read about 6 or so poems.

So the only box left is the Panthers Sticker sheet to do with daddy. Assuming Nick can do his job, and finish one single box with Blu, then we actually completed our workboxes for the day!!

I’ve been telling Nick that I may actually, if this week goes well, up Blu’s number of daily boxes. By the time you calculate daily things we do anyway we could still have a relaxed day but slightly more scheduled. We already watch a sign video every day, usually let me do a little bit of computer time on KidZui, and we’re beginning to implement daily family art time. That’s three more boxes already!

Kidzui is a kid safe internet browser and I like it. We have the free membership, but even though Blu is young I contemplate paying for the higher level. The higher level has a section of chosen website for homework help, and a few other neat things, mostly it’s more options. Rating options, clothes for your avatar, background colors, etc, stuff to play around with. One thing I like is that unlike other kids browsers I’ve tried this one actually is full of stuff already. One I tried your kids could ONLY access the website your manually entered for them, but who has that kind of time?!!? KidZui is already loaded with videos, pictures, and websites. Most of the time any website I try to put in for Blu (Starfall, etc) is already there.

Stay tuned to see if workboxes actually work tomorrow!

Let’s Try this Again

2009-11-01T11:59:00.000-08:00

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I haven’t posted real school related stuff for awhile. Since August my thoughts have gone something like this:

Take a break and plan! Collect ideas, read about techniques, choose a method.

Crack down!! School!!

Relax! If it happens it happens, plan a weeks worth and let it take a month!

Take a break and plan!

Crack down!

Take a break and plan!

Relax and don’t do anything.

Right now I’m at a combo of crack down AND relax. I’m going to plan 6 easy activities every day, and try to crack down on actually doing them. The reason I kept wanting to relax is that Blu is not even 3 yet, and I don’t want his whole day to be set and scheduled and fit on a sheet of paper. But at the same time I want to crack down because his behavior, attitude, knowledge, AND speech are all improved when we do work. It occurred to me, six boxes, even at 10 minutes a piece, is one hour! One hour of his whole 12+ hour day! I think that’s a fair amount of schedule. Even if each box takes 20 minutes, and they shouldn’t, then that is only two hours, add in a speech related DVD and a whole lousy 1/4 of his day is spoken for. And so I’m going to crack down in a relaxed way. If that’s possible. Maybe it’s not?

So the new plan is:

Every day has six activities

One activity every day is to count 10 pennies. He then gets to keep them, and taadaaa built in allowance! I plan to buy one roll of quarters, a week’s supply, then secretly every weekend change out his piggy bank for quarters and dollar bills, to recycle the pennies every week. That way when he actually asks to spend some he doesn’t just have a huge lump of pennies to pay with.

One of the six, the final box, will be with Daddy. So the first 5 have to be done before Daddy gets home.

Hopefully this will help us, and also help me to have more constant things to blog about. For this week especially I hope to blog daily about what was scheduled and whether or not we actually did them all.

And just the sake of a pretty picture:

This was at the Pumpkin Patch/Enchanted Forest/Petting Zoo we went to. This view of the woods was just breath taking to me. Notice the vivid colored mushrooms, they were scattered throughout the Enchanted Forest right in that area.

So stay tuned, while we see if this new approach actually works for us, and more interestingly if I actually stick with it!

Halloween 09

2009-10-31T16:14:00.000-07:00

As I drove around today, running errands and getting a purple piratey shirt, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful my town was. The weather was, mostly, perfect. The leaves were falling from the trees in a beautiful way. A nearby school apparently had a Halloween party during the day, and there were kids running everywhere, walking home, in costume. It felt like a Halloween you see in movies. Movies that take place in small New England towns. But I do not live in New England.

I hope your Halloween was/is (it’s only 7 pm here, most of you may still be partying) as beautiful as mine!

We got all dressed up, after over an hour of Blu saying “No yet!” Meaning, “not yet.” I went as a hippie/Janis Joplin, and Blu, well, I’m sure you’ll be able to guess this:

That’s right ladies and gentleman, for one night only, the one the only Jimi Hendrix!!!!

After hours of him waiting we went to only two courts, about ten houses, and he says “Go home!” and was done. It made me realize that a good rule of thumb, for us, may be one court per year of age.

As for his speech. We’ve practiced Trick or Treating ALL week. He’d knock on a door, I’d answer, we’d act out the whole thing. Over and over and over. He did learn to say “Trick or treat” though I haven’t heard him, he says it for Daddy. For me he waves his arm three times. After ALL the practice, he did not, not a single once, utter ANY sound while trick or treating! No “Trick or Treat”, no “Thank You”, no “Happy Halloween”, not even a “mumphh.” But I do think the practice helped him understand what was going on.

Happy Halloween everyone!!!!!

Am I the only one?

2009-10-26T08:18:00.001-07:00

If you buy a bag of “snack size” goodies, am I the only one who says “Oh they are snack sized I can eat two instead of just one!” Ah, who am I kidding, I say “I can eat THREE instead of one!”

Am I the only one that follows that logic?

Recently I bought snack sized Reese’s as a treat for my husband, they’re his favorite, but I’ve had twice as many as him! It’s that three for one mentality.

And Halloween is snack size season! Happy Snack Size Season everyone!

The Petting Zoo

2009-10-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Today we packed a bag of snacks, hopped into the car and drove about 40 minutes to a farm/park for pumpkins, a petting zoo, and fun. As we started walking the petting zoo section I saw an amazing interest in my husband’s eye. A twinkle, that showed me he was really enjoying himself.

When he walked over to the machine for feed he first stood by himself, and fed the goats alone, before having to get another handful for us.

I turned to him and said “I think you’re enjoying this as much as Blu. It’s like you’ve never done this before.”

His simple reply, “I haven’t ever done this before.”

His childhood wasn’t a bad childhood. He wasn’t abused, nor did he have drug addicted parents, or any other the other serious issues some kids deal with. We grew up in an area that didn’t have much, and parents had to be pretty dedicated in order to go the distance to do things. Most didn’t.

His simple statement just reminded me how much people can take for granted. I take for granted sometimes the fact that I get to stay home with Blu, and take him to petting zoos (we’ve been two or three times at least.) It’s easy to forget the simple pleasure of helping him feed a duck, when later then same day he’s literally ripping my hair out. I take for granted the simple things I do, have done thousands of times, that other people have never done in their life. Sure I’ve never been to Rome, like a lady I met recently who was sharing her adventures with me. In fact, I’ve never been off the East Coast, except once by total accident my family drove through the very very tip of Tennessee. But everyday I do things that are a complete unknown to some people. Read a book, knit a scarf, feed a goat, it’s so easy to overlook the simple things.

Even when you feel like your life is so boring, everything is so mundane, it’s settling to realize that there are a lot of simple things that are happening to other people for the first time.

And the winner is!!!!

2009-10-21T16:00:00.001-07:00

I’m a little late in announcing the stamp winner, my computer is SOOOOOOOOO slow to turn on and be usable that I haven’t even bothered for a few days. Thanks to the few who entered, maybe my blog isn’t quite as pathetic as I thought. I do in fact have readers, who actually READ my blog, and I love you for it!

I used a random number generator online, and have no idea how other people copy the actual box to their page, but the number was 3. So the winner is……….drumrolllllll……

Lorie! Who said:

Lorie said... I am a follwer

So congrats to Lorie! Go check out her blog Be Different, Act Normal.

Thanks again everyone who entered!

Have You ever Read The Animal Family?

2009-10-16T12:18:00.001-07:00

I have, maybe a hundred times, maybe more. Growing up I’d visit my grandparents, sneak behind their couch in a tiny space between it and the bookshelves, move dust bunnies, and bring a lovely blue volume off the shelf. I’d sit and I’d read, and I always finish it in one sitting. I think I read it on the old swing, on the porch swing, in various beds, and maybe on a couch or two. I don’t remember being very obvious about it. I remember it almost as a secret something, sneaking the book off the shelf, maybe even hiding it under my arm to sneak away to a reading spot. But someone knew I read it. Maybe the secretness of it was entirely imagined? Maybe it was left in my room every time I went back home? I’m not sure how, but my Grandpa knew I read it. And he gave it to me, as a goodbye present.

(Original Cover, picture from Wikipedia)

My Grandpa must have known for a long time he wasn’t at his best. Maybe he was planning his event for a long time. Maybe he knew he was getting old, and just wanted to say goodbyes before the inevitable came. Everyone dies, he knew he wasn’t any different. His event was that he killed himself. Or at least that’s what other people consider his big event, I consider his big event to be the memories he made, to say goodbye to everyone.

My Grandpa was a yard fanatic. You rarely saw him sitting on anything but his lawnmower. He planted nearly 20 acres full to almost bursting with plants. He was, so I hear, a meticulous farmer. To be honest I don’t know what my Grandpa actually did for money, to me he was always retired. I know all my cousins seem to barely remember more of him then rides in the wagon his lawnmower pulled. I know the final picture I ever took of him, the one I would give anything to have turned out better, he was riding his lawnmower and waving his arm like he was a cowboy. He didn’t like a single blade of grass out of place. He worked from the time he woke up, at noon in my lifetime, to well into the night, working, planting, mowing, chopping. But my last visit with him, he did something that to this day nobody believes. He gave me a shovel, and a metal detector, and sent me to town. To town on his meticulous yard. When I found a BIG spot of beeps, he helped me. We dug up buckets of stuff, “pirate treasure maybe?” We left a huge hole in the ground. We got a vintage license plate, some glass shards, pottery shards, several old car parts, essentially a small junkyard. He let me do something that was so outside the norm, and something I will never forget.

Then before leaving he told me, “You love this book, you should have it,” and as I walked to the car, my last visit with him, he handed me The Animal Family. I read it several times a year. Late a night, tucked in bed, or on a chair, alone with my thoughts, my memories, my memories of Grandpa.

And I’m not the only one he said goodbye to. He took my Aunt and her family out to dinner. My Aunt, who is as unsentimental as one can be, later went back and asked the restaurant for a single cup, to remember it all by. I’m not sure what, if anything, he did for some of my cousins. But I know what he did for me. I know that when he “did what he did,” as I so often hear when family can’t bring themselves to say “committed suicide,” he wasn’t in his right mind. He wasn’t the Grandpa, or Dad that we had always had, he was different. And maybe that’s why he said goodbye, he knew he was different. Maybe he knew it was on his mind, and his mind wasn’t strong enough. But I prefer to think about the other stuff.

The fact that I seem to be the person to know why he smoked a pipe. The only person who knows how to drink “chocolate milk black.” The fact that I am one of the few who has the strength to say “He wasn’t in his right mind, and he killed himself.” And especially to ponder, how did he know I love that book!??!?! 20 something grandkids, most of who he saw more often then me, but he knew me, I was the one that loved that book.

How to really Feel Fall

2009-10-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

Fall is my favorite season. All my favorite holidays are in it. The falling leaves and changing trees speak to me. Even just leaves scattered on a path.

“Look at me” they say “Savor Me.”

“Slow down, and just look.”

I admit I’ve been known to slightly, slowly, veer off the road because I’m looking at a particular tree. Not in an unsafe way mind you, but just realizing I’m suddenly going about 15 miles an hour and on the white line.

The other day I took a back road home during a mild wind storm and all around me were gorgeous fall colors, falling leaves, red and yellows. It just took my breath away. Curving in and out with the land, falling leaves, a sleeping kid, and life was good.

Besides just enjoying leaves I tend to really get into Fall. I like to surround myself with it like a warm blanket. Fitting, don’t you think? Fall is partly about warm blankets.

I read a lot of design and decor blogs, and magazines, and some of the stuff they do is really gorgeous, but simple fact is we work on a budget, a tight budget, and not a tight 6 figure budget. Here are ways that I put a little fall into everything I do.

A dash of cinnamon or nutmeg- add it to just about anything. The other night I put nutmeg in the breading of chicken strips and cinnamon in the honey mustard dip, and they tasted just faintly of Fall. If you are making a simple “No Bake Cheesecake” make it festive, and yummy, but putting cinnamon in the mix, and garnish with cinnamon on top.

Tuck extra blankets here and there. Throw a blanket over the back of the couch, stack extras under the side table. Even unexpected places like the back of a dining room chair. And a throw pillow always add a touch of comfort.

Jot notes on brown paper, and wrap items with kraft paper. Use a brown pen instead of black.

I haven’t done it yet in this post, but call it Autumn. It sounds so much brighter and worth celebrating. Usually I do say Autumn, but most people say Fall so I started the post like that.

Use pumpkins. Pumpkins can be purchased cheaply this time of year and whether you set one outside your front door or bake with them nothing else says Autumn quite like a pumpkin. Instead of regular chocolate chip cookies make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip.

Use Apples. In summer I put tomatoes in my chicken salad, and regular salad for that matter, and in Autumn I use apples! I like to buy apples by the bushel and put them in everything! You can use them as a centerpiece, make apple sauce, chop them up in recipes, and just snack on them.

Wear boots or at least sneakers. Even if it is still warm where you are, trade out the flip flops and sandals for fall shoes.

Use your most seasonal cookware. If you have a casserole dish that really screams fall then use it instead of your usual glass dish. I love the feeling of pulling a hot dish from the oven and seeing that extra bit of fall looking back at me. If you don't have one, get one! I buy vintage Pyrex all the time from my local Goodwill for $3!! Right now I'm in love with my mustard yellow dish, it's prefect for Autumn tasties!

I think the most important thing is to ENJOY the season. Don’t focus on the chilly temperatures, or the lack of light at night, focus on the crisp smell, the colors of the leaves, and the festive sense people are getting. Go to a pumpkin patch. Make a scarecrow. Breath the crisp cool air and think about the wonderful things you did during the summer, then dive into a pile of leaves.

Happy Autumn everyone!!! Thanks for reading.

My Planning Brainstorming Organizing and Fantasizing Binder

2009-10-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

Recently I checked out the book “Katie Brown’s Weekends” from the library (picture from Amazon.com) and she had a very neat idea for an memo board. You simply take a large board, and cover it with a variety of Post-Its. You apply hot glue to each post it corner and smoosh it on. Then when the pad is empty it peels off and you replace it. A handy idea, and her’s looks stunning, but I’m more of a mobile thinker. I might be in the bedroom chair one hour, the basement futon the next, and at the dining room table a few hours later. So I needed something more mobile then one large board. The idea came to me from my binder when looking at some neat themed journals I got in the dollar section at Michaels, and wishing I could hook them together with a small legal pad for all my brainstorming sessions. This is what I ended up making, and I LOVE it!

On the front of the binder, the left side, there is a “Project Log” which features sections for the house, crafts, and garden. Each page has a section for materials needed, resources, next steps, and on the back of the page, notes. There’s also two post-it note pads, and three post it flag pads. Then a themed stick note book, which has “FYI,” “BTW,” “ASAP,” “FAQ,” and “LOL.” Each with lines and check boxes.

The back of the binder has a small legal pad, one more pad of post-its, two pads of flags, and a creativity log. The log has sections for ideas, sketches, and quotes.

One thing I love is that whatever I am looking at can be tucked inside the binder, whether clipped into the rings or just shoved inside. So a library book of home decor, or home school catalogs, or whatever, can be carried around inside the book for easy transport. Also, when a post it or legal pad page is full, but not ready for the trash, I can punch a hole in one corner and put it in the rings. The use of several post-it pads at once allows me to do figures on one, and them carry them over to the other for final tallies.

I already know it is in fact easy to peel off the old item and replace it. (I have a two year old remember?) The hot glue just pops off with a little force. So when my themed books are used up I can simply put a small sketchpad, more post-its, another legal pad, or whatever. Blu tried a bit to forcefully to help himself to a post-it, and the whole pad came off.

Technically the pockets from the binder are still useable, but right now are smaller then normal. One or two items were to long to glue down and not go over the edges, so they had to cover part of the pocket.

The binder still closes normally, and if it was sitting on a shelf you can’t tell from the outside what it really is.

Next I want to get more post-its in various sizes to fill in more gaps. I got these bright ones at a local store for 75% off! (it was 87 cents a pack!) and bought them out. As I need refills I hope to go with a more subtle color theme.

Thanks Katie for the idea!!!

And not a Cut yet (with a giveaway!!)

2009-10-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve been stamp carving for a few days now. I’ve done literally a fistful and I LOVE it! I’ve been wanting a stamp carving set for upwards of 10 years. Seriously. When the stamping bug went around ages ago I was there, and wanted to be funky and artistic and make my own instead of cute puppies and wayyyyy to detailed to truly color fairies. Even before that I wanted a set because any true “Martha-Stewart-type” should! Oh how I could have decorated seasonal napkins, or gifts, or tags, or…. even if I was only 12. I started these with seasonal, my very first was the acorn, and my second the pumpkin. Then I carved “Blu” so he can “sign” his name on his best works, mounted it on wood so he could handle it easily. And then a “Nick” and then a flower. And I am nowhere near stopping! I want to buy carving blocks in bulk! I want to invest my life savings (if I had any) in carvable surfaces! All this and not a single knick or cut on the hand yet!

Here’s my handiwork so far,

Stamped out:

The ground of the flower got chopped off, I didn’t like the look, or the stamped image with it. It wouldn’t stamp well. Anyone who enters my house, especially to eat at Thanksgiving, will spot the pumpkin and acorn. Can anyone notice the very faint line in the B? Someone broke it, a second reason for the wood mounting. I just glued it back together to the best of my ability and figure it will last as long as it will last.

And while my head is full of ideas of what to carve, I find myself overwhelmed, and unable to pull any one image out to carve. Next I intend to tackle a set of flower parts, leaves, stems, petals, for a create your own flower set. And I have a few ideas for Christmas gifts. That’s where you, and the first official giveaway come in! Late at night (Eastern USA time) on October 19th, I will draw a name for a free hand carved stamp! (USA or Canada only please) How can you be in the drawing? I’ll be nice and give you a lot of chances!

1. Post a comment with ideas of stuff to carve! Only one comment please, but you can put as many ideas as you like.

2. Post a comment of how to use the carved images! Where would YOU stamp one?

3. Be a follower and get TWO entries! (leave two comments to say “I’m a follower” or some such)

4. Blog about this! (Then comment with a link to the blog post)

Now I’m not saying the stamp you receive will be a masterpiece, but it will be free! and hand done! and cool! Or at least I hope you’ll think it’s cool!

Now, I’ll go finish cooking dinner, and feel very afraid that my blog is so pathetic I’ll only get two comments.

I have a Sneaking Suspicion

2009-10-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

(Is “suspicion” spelled right? It sure looks funny, but spellchecker isn’t catching it.)

I have a sneaking suspicion that hosting a Flat Stanley is a curse. A pox, a pox on all your houses! Sorry. Anyway, it seems every time we get one in the mail someone in the house gets sick. Then the poor Stanley spends to much time in his envelope, and hardly gets to see anything. Our most recent visitor got to see a few few things, BUT I forgot to jot down his poor name and owner before sending him off again! I knew I better send him before he ~~sits around our house way to long like our first Stanley~~ ends up catching our bug. Especially since I knew we wouldn’t really go anywhere else. I did care for him enough to call him by his name while he was visiting with us, I’m just so bad with names that I have already forgotten it! Does anyone recognize this little guy?

First he went with me to pick up a friend at BWI airport. This airport was HUGEEEEEEEE, and he got to see a few planes take off, and land, as we got close, but it was night time so you couldn’t see much else. I was also not feeling very well, partly from nerves of driving by myself to such a gigantic airport, and partly because apparently I was getting sick.

Then I was sick for awhile and our visitor had to just hang out around the house. Then we went to see a train “museum.” Truthfully it may be the most pathetic museum in existence, but the kids love the real caboose, that sits right next to the tracks. It has a schedule of when trains will pass, and it has a wooden train table and playset inside! First he pretended to drive the train:

Then he enjoyed pretending to be a giant in a small village:

Until he had his own giant encounter!!

He also went with us to a Dutch farmer’s market, and enjoyed some interesting snacks, and way to much sugar (rock candy anyone?) but I didn’t get a chance to photograph it.

Now that I’m almost, kinda, maybe, feeling okay we’ll have more to share this week. I packed some simply Bentos for our train visit. Today I got something I have literally wanted for over a decade, a stamp carving set. And I also made a deal with my husband, if I don’t use my floor sized weaving loom by 2011 my Aunt has to take it back! So I’ll be putting some time into figuring that out. Technically I did warp it some ages ago, only to find out I neglected to thread the warp thread through the beater (!!) and never got back to it. And now another problem in the mix- I sold my small lap loom/warping board, so I have to figure out how to even get more warp thread more of the same length.

Thanks for reading! And be sure to check out more Flat Stanleys at The Work of Childhood.

Happy Homemaker

2009-09-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

I just stumbled upon this, Happy Homemaker Monday, in my blog reader (a blog I follow poster hers) and I wanted to try it too. For one maybe it will help me get over this tough hump we’re on.

The weather in my neck of the woods:

I haven’t been outside yet, but on the phone my hubby said it’s beautiful!! Tomorrow is supposed to be coollllddddddd.

One of my simple pleasures:

Coffee, hot cocoa, hot tea, well any hot drink apparently, and a magazine, curled up in my chair

On my bedside table:

More books then I care to count, on more subjects then I could easily mention

On my TV:

Physically on the screen? I barely watch it. On top of it stacked up? craft stuff!

On the menu for tonight:

Breaded chicken, chipotle cheddar potatoes, and some veggie. The potatoes are out of a box, we’re trying to refrain from grocery shopping this pay period to clear out the pantry. Then it’ll also save some money for healthy food, and a trip to the bulk food store, next pay period.

On my To Do List:

SLEEEPPPPPPP! We had a very rough night with Blu, just his general sleep issues, and I got about 4 hours, maybe, last night.

Also I have to pick up a friend from the airport. Not for a visit, she’s coming home from a retreat. I’m scared. I’ve never driven to an airport before, and have only even been to two.

New Recipe I tried last week:

Last week, none. We’re emptying our pantry so we’ve been eating all that stuff. The week before though I did tons of new recipes!

In the craft basket:

Well I have a quilt I’m working on, two actually. No wait, three. I started an afghan last week, it’s Fall I can’t resist! And I have a cross stitch sampler in a bag in progress. AND I am slowly working on a doily with a tinnnyyyyyy hook from a vintage pattern.

Looking forward to:

A nap. :)

Homemaking Tip for this week:

Something as simple as tearing down ugly wallpaper can make a HUGE difference in your house. We had this horrid stuff in the bathroom. We’ve been waiting to mess with it until we could paint and everything, but I bought new towels and everything to spruce it up. Tore down the wallpaper, and even with the ugly shabby walls it looks SO much better and brighter! So don’t wait until you can fully tackle a project to change things. I remember when I first tore off a piece of that paper (I’ve been tearing a chunk off every time I’ve been in the bathroom for ages) and just that one piece removed made the tiny room look brighter.
Favorite Blog Post of the week (mine or other):

Favorite photo from last week:

Blu and his bears lined up to help cook.

Lesson learned the past few days:

I’m still learning. LOL Mostly it’s how to deal with Blu, and it’s a daily struggle.

On my Prayer List:

An old friend of mine had knee surgery.

My sanity, having the patience to deal with Blu

Blu’s speech

Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:

I don’t have any right now.

And I need to learn how to do smaller line breaks in this blog editor, this looks terrible!!!!

Breakfast Muffin Tin

2009-09-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

We haven’t done a muffin tin Monday for awhile, various reasons. One day we jumped in the car to go to Grandmas at the last minute, one day I didn’t like the theme, some days were just to rough, etc etc. Today we’re joining back in though, and had a muffin tin breakfast for the first time! I did a “make your own omelet” with egg, goat cheese, green onions, diced ham, orange bell peppers, and then for kicks a slice of apple cinnamon bun.

If you want to taste an amazing omelet put goat cheese crumbles and green onion. YUM!!!!!! I got the recipe from Real Simple magazine, and it is SO good.

Today’s Muffin Tin was inspired by A Little Fun with Me and Lu, and her “make your own breakfast burritos” I thought that might be a bit complex for Blu though. I think I was right. I caught a few glimpses of him putting goat cheese on his egg, but mostly he just ate everything with a fork.

Don’t forget to check out more muffin tin Mondays over at Her Cup Overfloweth. You can click the button in my sidebar.

Also, on a completely different topic, cross your fingers for me. Today I driving to the airport for the first time in my life to pick up a friend as she comes back from a retreat. I’ve only ever been to two airports in my life, one was the HUGE one in Orlando FL, and one was a little po dunk one near where I grew up. I’m a little afraid.

My Weekend Discoveries

2009-09-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

Over the past two days I have discovered a few things:

1. It IS actually possible for me to go to the craft store get ONLY the item I went in for and leave. I truly thought that was impossible. Okay, well I’ll be fully honest, I did buy one extra thing, a calendar with picture of antique metal toys, Blu says he wants them framed in his room.

2. While in that same craft store it IS in fact possible to NOT buy any junk food! Did you know that you are actually able to walk past their giinormous display of candy and twenty flavors of Ghiradelli squares and not buy any?

3. Google Reader has no idea to act if you are so behind that you have almost 2,000 blog posts to read. It just scrolls to about an inch from the bottom, then lingers there apparently, so you have no idea how many you’ve caught up on. It scrolled reasonably for the majority of the scroll bar.

4. As soon as you decide to crack down on spending money you will suddenly become completely overwhelmed with creative ideas. Which let’s face it, are almost never free. You can save and scrape and be frugal, but it’s nearly impossible to do it for free.

5. Sometimes a kid just needs a hug.

Join me for a journey

2009-09-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

A journey to a new lifestyle that is. First I want to make a few confessions:

1. I LOVE junk food. Diet coke, ice cream, burgers, greasy pizza, etc etc. I better stop before I get hungry. My hubby and I have a strange reverse relationship. He works out an hour every day, nags me about working out too. And shhhhhh, when I’m out my myself, I sneak mounds of junk food! In the grand scheme of things we still eat healthier then most, but we’re not where I’d like to be. By no means do we eat like I wish we did.

2. I have a problem with money. Spending it wisely that is. My hubby handles the bills because I am honestly incapable. I really wish I was the kind of person who spent money only occasionally and got really awesome stuff to show for it. The other day I went to buy “a few things” total amount needed, maybe $10. I spent $40! EEK! Now we have a little bit of leave-way in our budget, so it’s not like I broke the bank, but my spending adds up, and we don’t have it. And I flat don’t WANT to shop that way. I feel like I am doing well, but the bags of stuff in the car with me EVERY time I come home beg to differ. And I get most of the stuff cheap, I had bags and bags and bags of stuff the day I spent $40. Which leads to

3. I have a problem with stuff. I am torn between wanting to be a minimalist and having the clean minimal lines of European design, and “Man that’s looks cool! and look how cheap it was!” I have a bad habit of buying things that are neat, or a pretty color, or were cheap, even if I don’t need it, love it, or have a place for it. Our house is a wreck, and I have a melt down at least once a week over it. Simple stuff like finding the can opener, or the missing sock can turn into a serious event for me. And it isn’t like one of those “Help! I’m a hoarder!” shows, and it is within some standards of cleanliness, it just isn’t organized and there is to much junk!

I want my house to be nice, organized, show that I have a design sense, instead of mounds of stuff in the extra dining room chair. I want people to see I actually have (I think) as much talent and originality as all those design blogs and magazines I love to look at! I want to have clothes that I care about and like. Not just stuff I bought because “it’s kinda cute, and only $3!!” I want a healthier feeling body, and leaner would be nice.

So, I’m going to crack down.

Farewell Popeyes, you were my last. Seriously, we decided to get a fatty bad lunch today as a final farewell to our old diet. Goodbye junk everywhere, you’ll go to a better place. And hello savings, I’ll actually put money in you now!

I’ll blog about my progress, ideas I try, what works for me, and if it all works! Stay tuned to see some changes in my life! You’ll see a lot of cheap decor ideas, tons of stuff going away, and hopefully a happier me. Hopefully the gradual changes, and the completed change by the end of it all, will stop making me feel like I’m torn between what I truly want to be and what I actually am. It’ll be interesting because my hubby tends to all gung-ho, until it actually affects him in some way. “What you want to cut out sugar? What about our sweet tea?? I’m not giving up sweet tea!” Yeah. That’s almost word for word. “We’ll cut back, tight spending. We’ll save every penny. Wait? What? I’m not giving up my comic books, or eating like a pauper!”

So stay tuned! Let’s see if this works!

Oh Taterhead Taterhead

2009-09-25T19:40:00.001-07:00

Where for art thou Taterhead?

Deny thy farmer and refuse thy spud…

When Blu and I are having hard times I tend to do crazy things. But really I just sit back, relax, and try to let things flow to a better place. But seriously, don’t those arms just scream for some Shakespeare?

Oh and check out this moustache:

I actually collect Mr P, (and all his potato bodied kin) and somehow the moustache of my BIG potato made it’s way into out everyday play Silly Suitcase, we couldn’t resist putting it on.

Blu put together this one:

And have Mr P’s glasses every looked any better?

And if you ever wondered, if you leave ham slices on the counter for even a fraction of a second, apparently this happens:

Good thing it was the fully cooked kind!

I Love Fall

2009-09-23T12:22:00.000-07:00

To me there is nothing better, well except maybe Spring. I love Fall, the colors, the holidays. I seem to always have "a perfect" acorn in my pocket. You can think about it being cold, and knit warm stuff, but when you go outside it isn't really cold yet. Christmas is on the back of your mind, but you're not dealing with the last minute stresses.

Fall always makes me want to redecorate, change my colors like the world outside. Then snuggle down to knit or stitch and sip hot cocoa.

It doesn't get any better then this.

(The photos are from Copyright Free Photos, they aren't mine. I'm not on my own computer, but I'll share some personal fall photos soon.)

I swear I updated

2009-09-22T21:33:00.001-07:00

I did a post, about some behavior issues with Blu and how I’m losing my mind, and I decided to remove it. But for my great followers who have been sticking with me despite my failure to blog lately, I did update. I’ll post some home school stuff tomorrow. It’s was I was going to post before my breakdown anyway. :) It’s just to late to post it now.

First day of “School”

2009-09-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning Blu had his very first Oral Motor Class, which takes place in an actual school and is set up similar to a preschool. I took pictures of what may be his only time of having a first day of school (our intention is to homeschool pretty much year round) and especially in a school setting.

The actual class, welllllllll if I HAVE to talk about it. We didn’t enjoy it, and we BOTH really hope it gets better. The biggest issue is that Blu is easily the most advanced kid in the class, his only issue being expressive language. The kids and parents were all nice, but the kids were either much younger then Blu or seemed to have more severe issues. Blu hated it, it breaks my heart that if you ask him if he had fun he says “No!” He liked only one of the activities, decorating a bus. The technique was neat, you put down glue with a gluestick, then BLOW bits of tissue paper onto the glue.

One big issue, that makes it clear how unhappy Blu was, the theme was his favorite thing, Transportation/Cars, and he was asking to go TO the car before it was even half over. Also his vocabulary consists of several car words, and a few signs, but he didn’t use any of them, which we expected. Blu has what we call his Poker Face, his completely lack of opening up in front of people. If you ever ran into me in the store, you’d swear he has no voice. He will not even laugh for people he doesn’t know. I once tickled the daylights out of him at a family reunion and didn’t get so much as a smile.

It bugged me some of the stuff they asked the kids to do, “Chew with your mouth BIG and OPEN like a cow!!” When I’ve already taught him to eat with his mouth shut like he’s civilized. Generally I felt as though they acted as if the kids were slow, or even mentally retarded, when it’s a speech class. Know what I mean? Although one of the girls there obviously DID have much larger issues, I don’t think it was to the scale of retardation. I just can’t stand when people act like he is slow just because he can’t talk a lot. There are enough kids with problems out there without blowing things out of proportion. Though I tend to go on the defensive when I feel like he’s unhappy or being treated like less then he is, maybe I’m over reacting?

Another clue as to how unhappy he was, his snack consisted of 3 pretzel sticks. He never even tried to ask for any more. The boy who eats like a lumberjack ate only 3 pretzel sticks.

He was also scared half to death when they brought out this creepy giant mouth puppet. He was literally climbing over his chair to get away. They didn’t notice.

We’re going to stick it out, at a minimum he needs the social interaction. And who knows what we may pull from it in the end? I’m not going to close any doors that may help him.

In other news, I’ve decided not to move forward with the store. Why? This:

Yes, my Dream in life, my goal for 13 years, the business I’ve wanted since I was a kid, has been practically handed to me on a silver platter, and instead of moving forward with financials and advisers I’ve decided not to do it. We’re going to put it on the back burner, long term, maybe see if there are some other ways of doing it, and I’m going to play Duplos instead. I think it was a way for me to really see my priorities all laid out, and I’m picking my top priority. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

Have You Ever?

2009-09-14T18:31:00.001-07:00

I’ve been gone awhile, I discussed why before and it’s still the same reasons. One thing to exciting and up in the air to talk about, one just not something I’m open to talking about, and the general anxiety and stress that goes with both. But I’m back, hopefully regularly again and for good. I intend to stick around again now. Now for the title of this post, have you ever? Have you ever hosted a Flat Stanley? We decided to sign up for the internet one over at The Work of Childhood. We’ve had out sweet visitor for about a week, but she came at a horrible time. First Blu was sickish, head cold really, and we didn’t really go anywhere so there was nothing to take pictures of. I did however managed to take her a few places now. We’ll be hosting about 30 “Stanley’s” for this project, and this is our first one. Princessy.

I went out the other day, just Princessy and I, to do some shopping. We needed a few things for the house, and I needed a break. First we got all buckled into the car.

Then she helped me pick out a lipstick. She said she read that “berry” is very in this fall, so that’s what we got. Apparently she likes fashion.

When I told her how heavy this box of detergent was she refused to believe me! she said she could load it into our shopping cart. And she must be VERY strong, because she did!

We tried on shoes, and I told her this one is pretty but it’s just to big!

Then one day she went with us to my Grandma’s house. It’s a pre-civil war farmhouse. Those stones near the window are well over a 100 years old.

Then she climbed up the steps to the balcony all by herself!

Stay tuned for more of our adventures with Princessy, and our other Stanley’s to come.

And another have your ever. Have you ever given up an amazing opportunity? Why? Would you tell me about it, and if you still agree with your decision?

There I go

2009-08-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

dropped off the face of the Earth again. Do you ever have a period where some things are just to tough/detailed/unsure to talk about them, and because of them you don’t feel like talking about anything else? Well that’s why I am. Some MAJOR things are going on here, luckily not health things really, and one of them is just to up in the air to feel comfortable posting to the whole world, and one is just tough. My life is so stuck in this little ball of these two things right now. The other day I tried to take a relaxing trip out of the house by myself to get my mind off of the stuff, and instead got a business call in the car.

1- I got a HUGE opportunity, very literally a dream come true, and if it works out it is HUGGGGEEEEEE, but one very major wall is in the way right now. I don’t want to talk about it, then the wall not come down, and me have to explain it to everyone. I’ve wanted to open a store for 13 years. The idea came to me when I was just a kid and I’ve clung to the dream for all these years. Recently I was offered a store front free for a year! All I have to due is secure funding for inventory, start-up expenses, equipment, etc etc. Hence the wall. Where exactly is a family with one person working, who lives in an expensive area, supposed to scrape up that kind of money?? And one business advisor very bluntly told me getting a loan is “impossible” and we’d have to have probably $20,000 in cash to even ask for it! Though another, nicer, adviser said otherwise.

2- We’ve been having some behavior issues, and more, with Blu. I’m concerned about his “speech delay” not being JUST a delay but something bigger. He had an appointment today with a local speech therapist and, well I didn’t like it. She didn’t answer my questions (When is a delay not just a delay, when is it something bigger?) At one point I felt she was pressuring me to ask Blu if he needed help, and then she pretty much fussed at me for helping him before he asked, but he DID ask and she didn’t hear it or see him looking at me apparently. It was very hard to get a word in edgewise, and she seemed very quick to put kids in a little cookie cutter box. She doesn’t seem to understand how insanely smart Blu is and wants me to dumb everything down for him. I feel like she of all people should know that a speech delay doesn’t mean he’s slow. She generally didn’t seem to listen when I was trying to explain how MUCH Blu does talk using the words and signs he knows. I was told to keep a list of the “next 25 vocalizations” after they left (his regular developmental specialist came too) and I tried to explain that that is pretty much one conversation with him. She made me feel as though it was a huge number of items and she’d get such a good idea of his vocabulary and noise making ability, but instead it was “eat, eat mama.” “now” “mailman” Pretty much he wanted lunch, got lunch, and the mailman came while he was eating lunch. She didn’t seem to get that Blu is different then most kids, and won’t fit in her box. If he doesn’t like a method he’ll make sure it DOESN”T work. So when I said, well what if he doesn’t like it? She said she didn’t care, then said if he’ll throw furniture, spit on the floor, etc then it’s time for the behavioral specialist. My thoughts on that? It’s OBVIOUS he is frustrated and unlike most kids he can’t say “Mama I don’t want to be in time out, please let me out. Can I get down now?” He shows me with some bad behavior. They left the meeting with me feeling it was completely wasted, and feeling horrible, and with NO questions answered anyway. I think it would have been better for him, and his development if she wasn’t there at all. Maybe I didn’t assert myself enough? I tend to do that. I was told I am the best “fast-talker” she’s ever heard, and that “despite my very fast method of speech I just NAIL it all, not a dropped letter, all well enunciated,….” I’m not sure how that helps Blu though. But we are going to start a regular oral motor play group. And my favorite aspect of it, she made it clear the whole problem is how I talk to him, what I say, how fast I talk, etc (please let me insert there that while I DO tend to talk fast, I had to talk that much faster when she was here because I felt she was going to cut me off at any second and I had to try to act fast) but she says that his delay is not my “fault” and that some kids just need… So she went on an on about how I’m doing just everything wrong, but then says apparently it doesn’t matter anyway?

So in not talking about it I just told you everything. I think in a funny way that is how blogging works. First you get this ‘I can’t just disappear I have followers feeling,’ then you open up to explain you have reasons for being away, then since you’re open the words just flow out like a babbling brook, or maybe more like an exploding volcano? I still don’t feel like talking though. The funny thing is I have some AWESOME stuff to share, a rainbow of mushrooms from a nature hike (ever seen a pink one?) , a VERY humorous AND VERY painful story from the same hike, and I have instructions and picture tutorial for a neat easy and cheap notebook. I make them literally by the dozen.

And I just realized I sent an email today that THE speech pathologist will read, and my signature says “Read my Blog at ….com” So L, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re a nice person. I just feel it was a bad day, a bad appointment, and maybe a bad connection between the two of us.

Stay tuned!

I'm Back!

2009-08-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

Gosh first I go off on a rant, then I completely disappear.

Our internet was SO bad, first I had a poor connection, then NO connection on my computer, then my computer was acting funny.

Oddly enough my iPod had a connection, so I was able to do a very few emails, but no blogging.

But anyway, sorry to rant and leave, but now I'm back! And will have faster internet on Tuesday, and not just faster cause it's fixed, but faster because we're upgrading.

Tomorrow Blu and I may find our first letterbox, so stay tuned for that! If not tomorrow one day this week for sure. We bought our supplies last week. I got a flower stamp, I'll be "flower thief" (cause I truly am, I pick everyone's flowers all the time. I've been known to sneak off in the night to grab one or a fistful, or just grab some when no one is looking. Hey, God made them, and I ask HIS permission. lol) and he got a airplane, I'm still like to think of a clever name for him. Maybe "Plane Hellion??" lol

AND I have major, jumbo, super sized news, but I want more info before I share. Here's a hint:

And that's not my image, I stole it from this place.

You Know What I'm Sick of...

2009-08-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Since my internet is staying mostly connected allow me to rant a minute. Do you know what I'm sick of? Crappy reviews as an attempt to get free stuff. Yeah I said it. Face it most "Mommy Blog" reviews are no good. They says "This is what it is. It cost this much. Thanks for the free stuff." I did reviews as a business for more then 2 years. I worked with several major companies. I gave it up because I didn't want to be in that mommy blog review bunch, but I NEVER would have done such a lousy uninformative review like so many I've read.

For example, "Little Passports" looks like a cute concept, and has popped up all over recently, but after reading almost a dozen reviews and reading the company website do you know what I know about it? You pay $11 and get a country themed package every month, and the first month comes in a suitcase. Yeah that's it. What is IN the packages? I have no idea. Is it WORTH $11? I have no clue! One review hinted at origami, but I'm not paying $11 for some origami papers and a thing of stickers. Know what I mean? Nowhere have I found anything that even resembles a list of possible contents. When I read a review I expect to actually LEARN something about the product!

I'm so sick of reading blogs that do reviews and are so obviously for the free stuff. One site flat quoted the Little Passports website!! And it's that much worse when some of them (and by no means all) then talk about integrity! Integrity to me is actually REVIEWING the product! Is it sturdy? Worth the money? Something cute, but could buy elsewhere easier/cheaper? Does your kid actually LIKE it? (Something most reviews seem to leave out!) Do you as a parent like it?? (Or is it the equivalent of a Happy Meal Toy? Fun for five minutes but trash.)

There is all this talk of "Mommy Bloggers", and how so many have a bad name, and they wonder why! I'm sorry but this is why.

And I'm not saying that all reviews are crappy reviews, I've read a few good ones, I've also read some that lacked basic punctuation and capitol letters!

So that is my rant, because I'm annoyed, not just by this but by other stuff and had to just proclaim how much it annoys me.

Stupid internet and it's slowness and lack of connection. I get cranky without it.

Better Make This Quick

2009-08-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

I'm am furious with our local internet service. My DSL is pretty much non-existant, and my internet is constantly going out, or so slow that it times out. Turns out they are "pulling up the dSL lines, because cable is now available in our area." Did we receive notice of this? No. Did we get any kind of discount since they KNEW we would not be able to get the speed we pay for? No.

So we DID do Tuesday Tea, but there is just NO way I'd be able to actually post it. I'll be lucky if this goes through.

Do bear with me, we get the cable internet next week. :)

Muffin Tin Monday

2009-08-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today MTM had no theme, and I just kinda winged it. Wung it?? Is there a past tense for winged?

Anyway, I’m hoping to start putting more planning and effort into having special, fun, cool, unique, etc etc foods for muffin tins, but this week I didn’t. Our tin had:

Pepperonis- folded and stabbed onto homemade party picks

A chopped up peach

2 Sections of basic salad, just romain with dressing. Blu LOVES this stuff.

1 cookie- I cut it into fourths

1 string cheese- I cut it in half then splayed out the ends, so he can string it easier

2 celery sticks

It looked like this before I gave it to him:

Here he is enjoying it:

He took forevvvveeerrr to eat today. I was seriously about to give up on him ever eating all of his food, he was just going so slowwwwww. But finally he was done. Since he took so long some of his salad didn’t get eaten, it got wilty in the 45+ minutes it took him to eat. BUT as a true sign of how much this kid (only JUST 2 1/2) eats, let me show you what was left over. I always comment on other peoples tins, and say “I can’t believe that is enough to feed your kid!” This is why:

AND keep in mind we had a late breakfast, less then 2 hours before this lunch, and at that he ate 2 slices of toast with butter, an egg, a slice of cheese, a big cup of milk, AND a cup of hot tea.

And now you understand why I say I feed a lumberjack.

Be sure to click on the MTM link in the sidebar for more muffin tin meals!

Fantastic Finds

2009-08-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

This week was horrible, as I’ve already mentioned, and I had my “treasure vibe” all week long. I didn’t feel like I HAD to go to the thrift store though, which means I needed to go yard saleing!

Where we are the streets are all names in bunches, with themes (mostly letters) per each section. So we live in the “G’s” (yes that is actually what we tell people. And a nearby street set, the “E’s” was having a community yardsale. I told Nick I was going to find a treasure.

I passed on a great old chair, because hubby is all “Where in the house are you going to put it??? You can’t buy a chair JUST to buy a chair!” I wanted to snap “Oh yes I can!” and buy it for spite, but I NEW it just wasn’t my treasure. It was the kind that looks like a basic slat back dining room chair, but has rockers. It was painted black, but needed repainting, but had a newly recaned (and good work of it) seat and back. Just wasn’t what we needed.

So even after two HUGE bags of fabric, I still hadn’t found it. I don’t have pictures of the fabric, because a garbage bag full of fabric just isn’t very photogenic. One bag is sheets, mostly white, all of which are cutters. I always try to use vintage sheets for my white fabric, because they are sturdy! And perhaps more importantly, you can get them CHEAP! The other bag was labeled as “scraps” and I barely looked through it before saying it was mine. It IS scraps, no real yardage, and is a neat variety of vintage bits. $4 for both bags!!!!

I also got these, actually a box of various wallpaper bits, and some almost full rolls. Not a lot of variety, these are the bigger chunks, then there is more of the cream pattern. 50 cents! I didn’t think people sold much of anything anymore for 50 cents!

Blu got a classic pair of adjust to fit kid’s skates, was GIVEN a Wiggles video, and bought a woodchuck. I was really surprised exactly how attached he got to that woodchuck! He also got a ugly mottled colored Ty bear. (seen near the woodchuck)

Oh wait!!! I DOOOOOOO have pictures of the fabric! Sorta.

Yeah, that’s right. Blu and I threw it around like confetti and rolled around it in. We like fabric THAT much!

I also got some tiny glass sundae dishes. Chances are they just came out of some Christmas giftset, but they are small and I like them. I got some household metal “baskets” that are really just loosely woven leaf shapes. I have an idea for those, combined with the fabric! Stay tuned for that.

I still hadn’t found my treasure, but we were done. Or so we thought! Going to pick up a Freecycle item we passed a yardsale. And I screamed! “Nick they have a …!!”

So we stopped. I contained my excitement about the …, and bought these:

(Well to be fair, two of them were from one of the first sales.)

And I got just two each of these gorgeous tea cups and saucers. She had a set of 12, and for a good price, but I have BOXES of teacups, and so I asked if she’d divide it. I figured to leave 10 is still a good number for the next buyer. They have a cute wildflower design, and a silver ring around the top inside. Then I found a cute cup without a saucer. And this same photo shows the sundae cups.

Speaking of the sundae cups… I’ve noticed that while I am desperate for a second kid, (5 months of trying and no luck) things in this world seem to be sticking to three. I’m being forced to reevaluate the family size I want. If I could I would have 5 kids. Yes, I’m serious. But I have begun to notice things coming in threes, and suspect it may be God’s way of giving me a message, especially since we’ve been trying for 5 months with no luck. When I found that patio set, and saved it from the trash, it had three seats. These cute sundae cups, a set of three. Even looking farther back, a set of ramekins I bought years ago, three. Custard cups, six, which is divisible by three, helpful since we use them for dipping sauces, not for custard. Now it could just be that when you have a set of four and one breaks you have three. And most families don’t keep sets of three, they need four. But I’m beginning to think it’s something bigger.

Now back to my finds. What exactly is the “….” item? Well it isn’t for me, it’s for my mom. Although I intend to help her fill it.

The reason so many people are scared of clowns?

And my gosh, does this date the house or what?!?!

Yes that is yellow, green, and brown argyle wall, with a gigantic tan patterned floor.

We also already learned why they just don’t make metal toys anymore. Blu went running, slipt, slide, crashed, and BAM cut on his neck from the doll house! He’s fine. Missed the jugular and all that good stuff. We’re on high alert though, because last time he had a minor cut it got infected and sent us to the ER (penicillin allergy apparently) and then into a 6 week hell of sickness (diagnosed as mono, but it wasn’t. It’s some strange nameless virus that kids get.)

And while it’s not a good excuse, we’ve cut back on “school” for two reasons:

1. Blu is entirely to badly behaved to even attempt it and keep my sanity,

and

2. My printer broke, and you’d be surprised exactly how much you print for school!

But that is remedied because hubby got me:

Notice the jumbled papers? Blu was already messing with it.

And I’m going to try again for school this week, maybe the dedicated, planned, time will help the behavior? A person can dream can’t they?!?!

And did I mention that today, he peed on me? On purpose??

Every Day

2009-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

This week I have said to myself, "Today is the day I am going to lose my mind." And so there has been no new posts since Tuesday, because I am to busy holding onto the knot at the end of my rope. Blu's terrible twos have gotten EVEN worse, when they were already the worst I had ever seen. The other day he SCREAMED, not just cried and fussed but full on shrieked, for over an hour. All because when he said he was ready to go home, I actually tried to take him home. EVERY single toy in our house, short of the very select few in his bedroom, have been taken away. Hidden in the basement until I decide what to do with them. Either I'll get rid of every last one of them, or we'll redo the unfinished "studio" part of the basement into a play/school/family art room.

Just now I spent almost an hour putting together this awesome post to share some cool vintage finds with you, and it screwed up the layout of my entire blog. I had to delete the post, and hopefully that fixed it.

I need a vacation, from life. Anyone want to put out a "Closed" Sign and join me on a mental health day? When do Mom's get to take a vacation from their job? When do I get to retire??? Where is MY yearly bonus?!?!!?!?!