May the 4th be with you.
It’s Friday.
I’m fried.
I’m a little nerd-tastic when I want to be.
And for the record, when I do show the girls the Star Wars movies, I am totally starting with Episode IV.
I encourage the girls to spend time playing either on the own or together. Usually after a busy day of school, some kind of after-school activity, miscellaneous running around and the like, we get home in that magical witching hour of post-homework/pre-dinner. It’s a crap-tastic time filled with whining, huffing and puffing, and eye rolling. And then, there’s the routine that the girls go through. I kid (no, not really. No, really).
In any event, once all the school related stuff (making lunches, homework, assorted notices filled out or filed), has been taken care of, I need to move onto the next phase of the day: dinner time. Usually, I have a plan in my head of what’ll be on the menu. If I’ve really been on my game, I’ve already got some kind of protein defrosted or some vegetables in various stages of being cut up. It’s when I’ve got my hand up a chicken’s keister trying to take out the giblets when Mo and Co tromp into the kitchen to announce how bored they are.
They’ve got book — theirs and the ones from the library.
They’ve got dolls.
They’ve got markers, crayons, colored pencils and pads upon pads of paper.
They’ve got LeapFrog reading systems that will READ.TO.THEM.
They’ve got sidewalk chalk, jumpropes, and bubbles so that they can GO.OUTSIDE.
But no, they don’t want any of that. They want me to entertain them. Oh, and did I mention that they’re hungry?
Here, watch Mommy do some soft-shoe while she de-bones a chicken and blanches some asparagus.
Anyway, in order to distract them from oogling what I’m making and then issuing proclamations of “I’m not eating that!”, I told them to go upstairs and play.
Cue the girls going boneless, sinking to the floor as they strike up a chorus of “Do we have to?” and “I don’t want to” and “Why do you get to watch TV all the time and we never get to do anything fun.”
I’m not really interested in outlining the ways in which they live a cake-walk existence, but I do want to nip this rudeness in the bud. So, while they pause for breath between rants, I very firmly, but very gently remind them that I’m not one of their little friends that they can talk to any which way.
“And for the record,” I tell them, waving chicken parts in the air to emphasize my point,” I know that you would never talk to your teachers that way, being all rude and disrespectful, so please don’t do it here.”
“Now, go upstairs until I call you for dinner. And work on those disrespectful attitudes.” As they stomped up the stairs, I called after them, “Oh, I know! Go play school and practice in your workbooks!” Yeah, they’ll love doing that.
Some how, oh miracle of miracles, they stayed upstairs busily entertaining themselves. Dinner got made, the table was set, the plates put in the places. When I called them down to eat, they came enthusiastically without complaint. As they headed to the table, Morgan handed me a piece of paper and said, “Oh, here. We were playing school. It’s a note from Co’s teacher.”
I’m going to need a straight-jacket and a rubber room before they’re out of elementary school.
Last week, I mentioned that I was going to put up a few pictures of the little soccer themed medals I made for Co’s team. A little background: Co is in the midst of her first soccer season via the YMCA. As the date for the first game drew closer, the hubby kept getting emails saying that the team had no coach. The emails grew more and more persistent — there’s no coach, we’d really like a parent to step up and coach, the team needs a coach — you get the idea. So, my dear, dear, hubs decided to earn some cool points with his youngest daughter and signed up to be the coach.
I joke on him about it, but in truth, it’s really sweet. My hubby is a few inches over 6 feet tall and it’s absolutely precious to see him getting out on the field with seven pig-tail sporting, jersey clad soccer superstars.
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| Talking strategy |
Anyway, aside from taking our turn bringing snack to the team over the course of the season, I thought it would be nice to make a little memento for the kiddos. Surprisingly, Pinterest wasn’t involved! I mean, I had an idea that was relatively easy to execute. I didn’t need any Pinterest suggestions to totally blow my good intentions out of the water and then everyone ends up empty handed at the end of the season.
So, here’s what I did. . .
I figured it would be best to use the team colors as the basis for the medal. The team name — The Camels — proved a bit challenging for me to try to incorporate into a craft-tastic project. I even Googled “soccer camel” and the results were way less than stellar. I’m no artist, either. I mean, I can get by with some caricatures and doodles, but my attempts at a soccer playing camel cartoon were alternately hilarious and pathetic. If you thought Joe Camel looked like a penis, imagine him in full Pélé gear with a football shaped soccer ball at this feet. Yeah, that’s kind of how my rendering came out.
A trip to the craft shop for some cardstock and stickers (yay!) turned things around immensely. Here are my supplies:
1. Cardstock in the team colors: black, white and red. I even splurged on the fancy, textured cardstock. You can’t see if in the above picture, but each piece is Swiss dot. Ooohh la la!
2. A set of stickers that featured soccer balls and practice cones.
3. A set of alphabet stickers (because my handwriting is atrocious).
4. A roll of white satin ribbon.
5. My circle cutter from my stint as a card making Stampin’ Up! fanatic.
6. A glue stick
So, I made several concentric circles in the various colors. I figured the black would serve as a great background with the white as an eye catching accent and the red, the perfect canvas for the lettering. Snipped two lengths of ribbon, crossing one end and gluing it to the black. Then I affixed the remaining circles to the black circle. I snipped the loose ends of the ribbon to get those little points and let the whole thing dry.
Once everything was stuck together, I broke out the stickers and set to work. You’d think with only seven girls on the team, this would be easy, but let me tell you, those Alpha-Dot stickers are incredibly adhesive to their own backing. For every letter I pulled up, at least half of it still had paper stuck to it. Tweezers would have come in handy, but of course, I didn’t think of that until after the fact. Like I said, I opted for stickers because my handwriting isn’t the greatest. I should have invested in a level or some kind of centering device as well because eyeballing the center of the circle so that the name lines up just so left a lot to be desired. With the names in place, I embellished the circle with a soccer ball and a cone. It still looked a little plain, so contrary to my own intentions, I picked up a Sharpie and free-handed the season and the year under each kids’ name, along with a “Go Camels!” across the top.
And ta-da!
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| Everyone’s a winner! |
Co is really enjoying being a Camel and has scored at least one goal at each game. Aside from some pictures we’ve snapped, now she’s got a little something extra to commemorate her super season. As for me and my crafty ribbon/medal making, let’s just say all those shops on Etsy can breathe easy. Way easy. . .
Dinner time at our house is a pretty average affair. I make the dinner, I serve the dinner, I retreat somewhere out of the kitchen so I don’t have to listen to the children discuss how they’d rather be eating sushi (Mo) or how they are “really, really, really thirsty” (Co). Yes, I know the importance of family meal time, but truly, at 5:30, I’m not hungry. And yes, I could sit with them while they ate. . .
Anyway, I got them squared away with the evening meal and I told them that I didn’t want anyone popping up from the table unless they had to use the bathroom. That might sound really ridiculous, but it peeves me to no end when I say dinner is ready and then they are up and down like Whack-a-Moles trying to show me how much of this they ate or how much that they pushed around to make it look like it’s been eaten. Just eat until it’s gone or until you’re full, and for goodness sake, leave the plate on the table. Don’t carry it through the house, over your head no less, like a prize winning game animal you took down. When you’re done, sit back and digest for a bit. Then we’ll talk seconds (Mo) or dessert (Co).
I heard the scraping of utensils on plates and the occasional stunned, “This is really good!” coming from the table. Then it got really quiet. For a really long time.
So, I poked my head around the corner and saw this:
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| Death by Chicken Picatta? |
Uh. . .what’s going on here? Are they praying for ease of digestion? Trying to figure out how to get dessert? Did they fall asleep? I know it put some wine in the picatta sauce, but it wasn’t that much. I was stumped. Then I decided to look under the table. . .
Look at my little bookworms! There is nothing wrong with that. Dessert all around!
I’m Type A. I know that about myself and I embrace it whole heartedly. I love making plans. I like lists. I like nothing more than taking a piece of paper and filling it with the fine minutiae of what will suck up the minutes of my day. Even simple things that are part of our everyday routine, like “Drive the girls to school” make it on the list so that I can have the satisfaction of crossing it off when I’m done. It’s the little things in life, right? Well, that and new pair of shoes. . .ooooh, I’m going to add that to my list.
Anyway, finding some time to write and something to write about has been topping my list as of late. I haven’t been any busier or any more tired than normal. I just haven’t felt compelled to write. Or more likely, when I do have a minute to write, the great ideas I had slamming around in my head have disintegrated into “What am I going to have for lunch?” and “What happened to that ice cream I hid behind the frozen peas?” and stuff like that.
Sure, I have thoughts on Trayvon Martin, Samantha Brick, Sandra Fluke, placenta pills, red-shirting your kids, and the on-going SAHM vs. working mom vs. OAM debate. There’s a lot to discuss out there and I’d rather have a meaningful discussion about it with some friends over coffee than just put my two cents into the mix, step back and see what happens. A lot can get lost in the translation between my head, the keyboard, and whomever chooses to read what I’ve written.
So, I gravitate towards lighter fare.
Photographs and pictures that inspire me.
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| I do believe in mermaids. I do, I do. |
Recipes that I want to try.
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| Pie in a Jar |
Clothes that I’d like to have (and somewhere schmancy to wear them to).
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| All dressed up with places to go. |
Crafts I’m (pretty sure) I can make.
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| Where we met, married and live map |
Places I want to visit.
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| Ahhh, Venice. |
Books I’m reading.
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| I don’t know if I’m impressed or depressed. |
At first, I was going to take this blank space of a post and write about how I’m already planning Co’s 5th birthday party. Yes, I have OAM tendencies, but I’m taking medication for that.
SN: My mom got on my case when I whipped out my folder of ideas and notes. “Her birthday is still in September, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And you do know that it’s April, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
After my first paragraph about list making and my internal monologue about “proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance”, my train of thought took a different course. And I just started writing just to write. I have come across several other bloggers giving tips on how to get started with blogging, or how to improve your blog. Sometimes, I want this blog to be a little more than it is. I want it to have substance (the word gravitas keeps flashing in my head). I go through periods where I’m ready to scrap it as my personal sounding board and really try to pinpoint some topics that I think are worth intellectually stimulating.
I want it to be something that people say, “Did you see what was on the One L today?” (of course, that would necessitate more writing, but I’m working on that). I want to have fully formed, thought-provoking opinions on topics that matter. BUT, I also just want to look at pretty things, eat good food, read books that have me thinking “Just one more page and then I’ll put it down”, and take pictures of my family and friends that really capture just who I am and what I’m about.
I focus on the tidbits that make up my little plot of earth: how my girls are the smartest and funniest bundles of the best parts of me and my hubs, how we’re getting ready to become a family of five, and my attempts to be a better person. I show off a few things that I’ve made — I just finished making little ribbons for Co’s soccer team (pictures forth coming). I’m still working on those Norfolk Mermaids. I’m slowly growing a photography business. I’m busy in ways that matter to me and that matter to those people who are most important to me. I might not be the wittiest, the funniest, the craftiest blogger out there, but I’m doing what I know how to do the best way I know how to do it.
In college, when I became a member of my sorority, I was given a name that represented who I was and who I had become throughout my sorority experience. At the time, I didn’t really get it’s significance, but as I’ve *ahem* matured, I’ve come to appreciate it even more. I’ve definitely grown into it. I understand how it truly represents the person I’ve become.
e·thos
[ee-thos, ee-thohs, eth-os, -ohs] Show IPA
noun
1.
Sociology . the fundamental character or spirit of a culture;the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs,or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions ofa people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highlyvalued.
2.
3.
the moral element in dramatic literature that determines acharacter’s action rather than his or her thought or emotion.
This blog is just an extension of that. This is what makes my blog my own. I don’t need to be like every other blogger out there. They’re already filling niches; why cram myself in? I’m going to stick with what I know. Just doing my own thing and crossing things off my list as I go.
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Do not stand at my grave and weep;
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I am not there. I do not sleep.
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I am a thousand winds that blow.
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I am the diamond glints on snow.
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I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
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I am the gentle autumn rain.
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When you awaken in the morning’s hush
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I am the swift uplifting rush
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Of quiet birds in circled flight.
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I am the soft stars that shine at night.
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Do not stand at my grave and cry;
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I am not there. I did not die.
I’m all kinds of turned around. I completely thought that yesterday was Friday and as a result, you all got Recipe Friday a day early. I’d like to think I just gave you an extra day to amass your ingredients for those mini chicken pot pies I just know you’re going to make this week-end.
Anywhoodle, today, the girls are off from school for Good Friday and we’ve hit the ground running. Up, washed, fed and dressed, we started off by getting the Easter break assignments out of the way. We got our math practice done, complete with eighty-eight bajillion potty breaks/nose blowing episodes/ “She’s making to much noise and I can’t concentrate” confessions, and “Will you sharpen my pencil? Again?” requests. All of this, of course, before they had even written their names at the top of the paper.
Once the hard work was behind us, snacks and library books were passed around. Finally! I can squeeze out a few minutes and get down to the business of catching up on what’s going on through the various media outlets I frequent. Oh and to see what else needs to go on my “I. Just. Want. It.” pinboard. Here’s a handful of things worth checking out.
1. Everyone has their cross to bear, but this woman totally takes the cake.
2. I so wish this woman wasn’t backlogged (for what is probably the rest of her life). This would be a great gift for my girls.
5. Just got this app and the Michael Jackson Mix is right on time.
6. How do I know it’s not going to rain any time soon? Because these came today.
7. Starting to plan Co’s 5th birthday party. I can learn how to make this by September, right?
8. I’ll admit it; I ordered the rest.
9. And this will be my contribution to Easter dinner. . .well, for after dinner.
10. My texts are never this funny.
Happy Friday (for the second time), y’all!