Saturday, August 25, 2012

Mommy's back in school!



Today while you were napping, my handsome son, Mommy wrote a short 500 word "story". In order to be a better writer and to hopefully keep from continually boring people to death (seriously the law suits are getting out of control) I am now enrolled in a creative writing course. Creative Writing (Prose) literary fiction to be all technical and junk about it. Below I have reused my first assignment (a self portrait) as a post. TWOFER!  Since I wrote it during nap time it totally counts and I don't feel bad about reusing. 


“What goop should we eat today Big Boy?” I stand before the cupboard debating which prefabbed cube of vegetable flavored mush to feed my son. I can’t believe I feed my son this gestational colored slop.  “Do we want fruit or vegetables?” I ask, waiting for an intelligible response from my unintelligible ten month old. “Da da da vuuuuuurzzzm,” my son decrees, sitting in his high-chair alternating between eating his cheerios and watching them skid across the linoleum when he beats his little fist on the tray.  His lordship is in high spirits today, all may be merry.


I take his charge to mean fruit and it from its place. I don’t feel as horrible spooning the faux fruits into his mouth as I do the vegetables, it feels like less of a lie. I take the three short steps from the cupboard in, our small white-paneled kitchen, to his highchair and sit across from him. I scootch my chair a little closer, and smooth his red-gold baby curls back from his forehead. My utensils are already placed and waiting beside me on the table, an arsenal of brightly colored, ergonomically designed spoons, their mismatched patterns are an affront to the calm sophistication of the chartreuse tablecloth. A pristine paper towel and off to the side a Sippy cup that’s most often used as a missile, rather than for hydration.


 While ripping the foil off the container marked “Roasted apples”, I’m splattered with pieces of pulverized apple flesh, wincing at the sudden, though not unexpected, shower and place the foil in line beside the others. It’s one of the nicer smelling substances I’ve been perfumed with today.
Stirring the roasted apples my son and I start in on our mealtime chatter. His sweet baby chatter fills the kitchen overtaking the summer sounds outside, the cicadas and birds carry on a gentle background noise ebbing in and out of our stories. This is one of our favorite parts of the day. No messes for mommy to clean are clamoring for my attention, no toys demanding his care.

He only allows me a few attempts to feed him, before relieving me of my spoon and feeding himself. He waves his half empty spoon in the air, splattering us both with more apples in his gleeful gestures. He laughs as he puts the spoon back in his mouth, clenching and unclenching it between his teeth to make it dance. I laugh at his slapstick while I rub the residue off my glasses.
The tribal paint on his face and tray are  soft beiges and light browns, subdued in hue but shining in texture. The fresh markings are easy to wipe away with his bib, but the older ones will have to wait for his bath.

I remove the tray from his highchair and give the final mealtime command. “Up”. He smiles and waves his baby sweet arms at me and I lift him from his chair. Hidden cheerios fall off his lap.  

Monday, August 6, 2012

Some one's gonna have to send me to crafters rehab

Today, while you napping, my curious critter, mommy took a moment to step back and look at all the new projects she's started since she vowed to not start any new crafts until the old ones where done. Here are all the new crafts I started:


Felt book that only spells half your name and isn't sewn together. 

Monster party favors for your Birthday party in 3 months. I like them because
 my bad sewing and inability to cut a straight line just ad to their charm (right? RIGHT?)

Second more flattering angle of Monsters.  Old lumpy
up top thought he looked to hippy in the last picture. Only ten more to make! 

Deblurring...um de-cluttering my desk my cluttering up my memory board.
Now with nifty thread holder in green made from a paper towel roll (It's an empty roll, just to be clear). 

Nailed the deblurring part! Yep, those are peeps from last Easter (featured in the lower left corner).
I want to see how long it'll take them to start glowing in the dark, or clucking. Which ever happens first. 

Monster envelopes for your Birthday invites, yes the Birthday that's not until October.

A candle made from a clementine (found this one via this site from Pintrest).
I wanted to send a message to the other clementines. 

Poorly covered toy box made from an old diaper box and an
old ripped curtain it's supposed to look like this.


A tenth of the boarder for the kitchen 

Wiggly-eye frame for your first Birthday picture (my main crafting premise
 for your Monster birthday party is put wiggly-eyes on it and it's a monster). I still have many,
 many eyes to apply. 


Picture frame for a photo of your first trip to the beach, that was
 two months ago, that I still haven't developed pictures for. 

Clementine after four hours.


And those sweet boy, are just the ones I'm not to embarrassed to show (and the only ones I remember starting, I'm sure I'll stumble over many many more).


Also, I am in LOVE with the clementine candle.

Seriously, I might write it a poem or a novel that involves star crossed lovers and mythological creatures like werewolves and vampires or rewrite the Minotaur legend into a post-apocalyptic love story that involves reality TV(see what I did there? HUH? HUH? I'm a callin' you out Hunger Games ( I love you more than the candle so it's said with love) to describe my love for you.  Or maybe instead I'll rewrite Gone with the Wind, but set it on Mars and it'll be all about how awesome this discovery is. (I don't know nuthin 'bout lighten no candle!) 

And back to the candle itself, I found the instructions for it here. The way the blogger describes the process it looks like she flips the rind inside out and gets all gentle with it.

I found it easier to cut the clementine in half and just scoop out the flesh. That way the "wick" is fully in tact and you don't break the peel. It does take a long time to light, so long I had to switch lighters so my thumb wouldn't catch on fire.



Who needs photo shop? I have crayons! 

I'll post back later today when the clementine goes out, I'm really curious to see if it'll last 8 days. This would be an awesome Sunday school or Hanukkah teaching project. I will also finish all these projects! In 8 days! Ha, that's the best wrap up I've ever written. 

Sunday, July 8, 2012

I will finish what i have sta

Today, while you were napping, my fearless little boy, Mommy spent sometime looking at all the "almost" and "just about" finished projects she's started. This blog, my last blog, my degree, this painting from 2009.


Being unfinished didn't keep me from hanging.


Not only is it cluttering up our already, tiny apartment, but it's actually kind of depressing.  

So mommy is going to embark on a big, time consuming adventure. No matter how tedious, or hard, or stressful, Mommy is going to catalog all her unfinished projects and then she is going to complete them gosh darn it. 

No matter how many awesome projects that'll take "just a couple minutes" I find on Pinterest like-




DIY.


or this


cool stuff! <3 <3


or these 





or this





Or how many episodes of Martha Stewart I watch, I WILL FINISH WHAT I HAVE STARTED. I will, I mean it. Umm...but um ...maybe one for the road, cause I have some of the stuff for most of these, I'm just missing a couple or "ingredients". 
...........

And to prove I'm going to finish what I start, I'm gonna change subjects mid-post and talk about how brave you were at your first fireworks show! Mommy was ready, if the loud bangs and lights flashing scared you, to run for the car and hop a plane to England until the fireworks were over, but nope! You were spell bound, you sat on the grass in the park in awe of pyrotechnics. Then you actually tried to touch the fireworks! You kept looking at me and Daddy like "Guys, are you seeing this? Is this for real?! Tell me I'm not the only one seeing this, why are you not more excited?!".

I'm so proud of you, 8 months old and already reaching for the heavens.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

I really wish

Today, dear boy, while you were napping, Mommy spent way to much time on Pinterest. An you know what? Pinterest needs a "Hide" button. So I can pin really awesome, crafty, witty presents and then take all the credit for them. 

Friday, June 22, 2012

I miss the cats

Today, my diminutive dreamer, while you were napping, Mommy started decorating for our little family Graduation party for Daddy. He's officially an exercise scientist and has his bachelor's degree! GO DADDY! I made him the world's longest and worst proportioned banner in the history of the universe, and then made some pretty cool pom poms in our University colors (because what do men think of when they think of celebration? Frilly tissue paper balls). 


And that's when thingsgot mysterious and spooky altogether ookey........I relized the cats are at your grandparents now. So when say, I hear shampoo bottles fall in the bathroom, or a bag of something shift in a cubboard or chains rattling and someone saying "Get out! Get out!", I can't blame it on feline shenanigans (different ways I tried to spell that before spellcheck  figured it out- shinangins, shinnnagens, shenananagains) anymore. So here's my proof of haunting:


SEE! they even changed the post so it's not right side up anymore!
Ok, sweet boy, when you wake up we're gonna go buy a bunch of sage to burn and find a couple priest to bless the apartment so Mommy can sleep tonight. 

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Holy Mother of all Tornadoes

OMG my sleepy little boy, while you were napping and Mommy was napping, daddy was awfully quite.


I'm gonna preface this photo the way Daddy prepared me for it: "I'm going to clean it up, don't freak out, I'm just organizing it."
Look at that! Specters came from beyond the grave to look at it!
Or maybe they just got here early to visit with Daddy after I KILLED HIM.


I didn't blink breath or pump blood through my body for about half a century and then it got bigger:






And BIGGER


And then Mommy had to go sit down and eat a tub of cool whip.


If I had a hammer

While you were napping, my imaginative explorer, Mommy had an idea.  I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of DIYing (which is short of getting the people at Lowes Hardware to do all my measuring and cutting and whatever else I can finagle (I know I don't know how they got D I Y out of that either)) for me.

One of your favorite activites is turning the knobs on Daddy's amp and pushing buttons on things you're not supposed to. Soooooo I want to make you a play table with all sorts of awesome just pooring off of it. Like a part that has a bunch of switches and knobs for you to turn and switch and push and scream at. Maybe they'll light up and set off fireworks and solve world hunger.

Also it would have a section for legos and a section with the old-timey wooden beads on "roller coasters" like at a  doctor's office but it wouldn't have mutant west nile - bird flu -anthrax germs so mommy wouldn't have to have a nervous breakdown every time you lunged for it.  The last section is blank (at least in my mind, kind of like my mind most of the time), I'm thinking maybe dry erase board then you can color and or eat and or do experiments and or have free space. OH! OH! It would be a great excuse to make my own chalk board paint!!!!

 Here's a crude doodle:



Bahahahahahaha I'm so punny, ah I did it again! I'm on a roll! 



Next step, scrounging for materials.


OH MY GOSH GUYS- sorry I posted with out revising it. It was about 110 times worse than usual. Any unemployed editors available to work for free? 

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

I'm cheap

Today, dear boy, you took a nap at our garden. You gave it a valiant effort to remain conscious but it was to boring watching Mommy weed. What you missed was the awesome that is Mommy staking our garden for less than $8. Do you know how many diapers that is? Two. For the price of two dollars mommy did this:

Staked:  5 tomato plants
              2 Pepper plants
              1 squash
              1 Cucumber
               Multiple pea vines.

Instead of buying plants stakes at a garden center, I went to lows and bought 2 10ft pieces of PCP tubing. I asked a gentlemen (that worked there, not just a random customer that was wandering around aimlessly) to cut the tubes into 2 1/2 sections giving me 8 stakes. The tubing only cost $1.78 and cutting is free (LOVE ME SOME FREE STUFF!).

So glad I had the foresight to weed before
taking cruddy pictures with my phone. 


I bought $2 worth of kitchen twin to use to tie the plants to the stakes and to make a trellis for the peas to climb. I still have about 2/3 of the twine left over.






I used small jingle bells and craft mirrors to scare away the various varmints that had eaten our first round of plants. They cost more than the stakes but their so pretty it was worth it. They cost about a total of $5. I got 40 jingle bells and 24 mirrors. Shout out to Grandma and Granddaddy for donating some old tomato cages (seriously , I soooooo tired of my plants running away and plant control having to round them up and bring them home).

All we are saaaying, is givve peas a chance!!!!

If you look long enough you'll discover the secret code I wove into the pattern. Give up?
It's a scene in outer space. Try unfocusing your eyes and moving slowly
 closer and further away from the screen

I am the most proud of our 43 cent pea trellis, one of the advantages of planting in a community garden is that people are willing to share. If someone has say, some extra bamboo, they leave it in the community tool pile ( not fully of jerky boys that use to much jell and "cologne" (cough cough PERFUME cough cough)). So mommy took some bamboo and leftover twine and created a small place for our peas to grow!!!!



I totally MacGyvered that thing, If I'd had a paper clip,
 I could have made a twin engine plane. 

Next nap time, since daddy will have the day off, mommy is going to go to the garden with some homemade bug/disease/insect (yes bug and insect are the same thing but I HATE them) spray so that the things growing the best in our garden aren't ant hills and arachnids(Ick, Shiver).


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The rare red breasted evening nap

This evening, my unpredictable little boy, you took a nap after our errands. That's two naps mommy got to participate in today. Did I exhaust you with my over enthusiastic awe of the "Ugli Fruit'? Because, sweet pea, this fruit is the most appropriately named fruit of all time.

Not only does it look like a grape fruit that was left to rot for a month behind a dumpster in the middle of the Gobi desert, but it FEELS rotten too.
Just looking at it makes you go "EEWWWWWWWWW
squishy squishy squishy squishy!!!!!!!"
Look, I even managed a picture of the little old woman I scared with my inconceivable awe at this horrible horrible looking monstrosity. Frankenstein must have learned his lesson about making humanoids and has moved onto mutant reconstructed fruit.


Speaking of mad scientist and experimentation (worst segway EVER) Jen Lancaster at jennsylvania.com is giving away a free short story if you mention her on social media and I LIKE ME SOME FREE STUFF. and Jen Lancaster's writing. So just to be clear, Jen Lancaster.

You tricked me my little Thespian. I hear you playing in your crib, here I come. 

Due dates are relative anyways

Today, my nocturnal rag-a-muffin, mommy spent a lot of time looking at her essay, but not very much time revising it. The irony of writers block hitting so hard on this paper? It's the theme of your mind as it's own prison with examples from  Lord Byron's Manfred.

Yes, my slumbering bambino, I have made a hell of my heaven's rest. I was so miserable I attempted cleaning again, partly to get the juices flowing partly in a desperate attempt to feel productive. (The mess is just located in different areas in newly created piles)  I spent quiet a bit of time on Pinterest looking at writing tips (because of course Pinterest is the best source for an undergraduate senior English paper, duh).


Then I wrote an inane blog post with no point, no wit, and still got nothing writ. Although.........

No point
No Wit
Nothing Writ

AH!! I wrote a poem, I'm a super star! My writers block is annihilated, surely those three lines will immortalize me! Take that Byron.  You wish you'd thought of it. 

I know pathetic, see what hell I'm in? 

If this trend of domestication continues I'm going to have to change my tagline and/or start seeing a therapist. Also here's a picture of a mouse with a toy I found on Pinterest. You're welcome.




Monday, June 18, 2012

I save it! It's not a goblin anymore!

Yesterday, dear boy, you did not nap. I believe you are the answer to perpetual motion and self sustaining energy. If mommy strapped a generator to your hiney we could power the whole complex, for a year, on one day of wiggles.


You, my bustling little boy, were up from 9 am until 11:30 pm yesterday. You took one thirty minute nap in the car on the way home from the store and were completely set for the day. How? You are only 8 months old, how do you stay awake for such long stretches?

Today, however, you napped. Praise Jesus, and I mean that. So while you napped I finished what was to be your crinkly owl toy

Really cute, non scary toy I should just buy. Found via Pinterest. 

and then became your creepy green goblin crinkly owl toy

Seriously, what child doesn't want their toys to give them nightmares

and is now your kinda cute little squishy green and white rhombus toy. *



It might look a little zombie-esk here but it's just a harmless  piece of undead felt. 

Yea for happy accidents! 

*The buttons are reinforced with liquid stitch and a heavy duty thread used to stitch denim together. 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

I am

This morning, silly boy, while you were napping, I realized what a fabulous, well dressed, interesting, well traveled,  crafty chief I am. On pinterest.

Friday, June 15, 2012

The Beginning

Today, while you napped dear boy, Mommy cleaned a fan, started a blog, and made an owl crinkly toy for you.


First I laid down for ten minutes because you wore me out this morning.  Then I got up to clean the year worth of dust that had accumulated on the free standing fan in the living room. I didn't remember to turn to the fan off first. Now there is a path of yuck evenly distributed across our floor, it looks like the dust bunnies have started molting (or, in more non child friendly visual, as if the dust bunnies were attacked by a weed whacker). This is why Mommy doesn't clean.

Because I am so hilarious and I'm sure the entire world has been waiting to hear all the fascinating minutia of my life, I started blogging again.  (That's why you heard all those trumpets blaring and angels singing during your nap, the heavens had opened at the joy of my return to the bloggisphere, it had missed my ramblings and tangents so much.)  Because there just aren't enough Narcissus talking about themselves using horrible grammar and disgraceful spelling in the world, I had to fill the niche. It was my civic duty, my son.

After awhile I became bored with(all my ideas were taken) trying to find a witty, yet understated, and poignant yet easy to remember blog name and started to work on your owl crinkly toy again .  Yes handsome, the same 15 minute craft I have been working on for two weeks now. If I could remember where I kept the first 8 patterns I cut out, I would have been done by now, but that's one of the pit falls of mommy trying to clean, I put things down in places I'll remember and then when I try to organize later, I don't know where things are. This is what it's supposed to look like-



Stupid Pinterest making me think I'm Martha and all crafty and stuff. 
So far this is what it does look like-




Maybe I'll just call it your creepy, green goblin, crinkly toy and deem it a success.