Not So Perfect

You know those commercials for facial cleanser on tv? The ones where the woman with the perfect complexion is in a perfectly white terry cloth robe, in her perfectly clean bathroom, with her hair perfectly held back from her face in a perfect knot or perfectly smoothed back by a headband, no random hairs sticking up in little tufts making her look like a guest alien on Star Trek. She has one of those beautiful bowl sinks that look gorgeous but takes up all your available counter space. It's perfectly clean, no water spots or toothpaste smears, & is on a smooth equally perfectly clean counter top. She gets the tube for cleanser from some unspecified location (can't tell where but there is no counter space for it so there must be a hanging shelf somewhere), washes her face and leans forward, cups her hands full of water & in one perfect motion, splashes the cleaners off of her face. No water splashes on the counter or gets in her hair or dribbles down her arms, soaking the robe. Then you see her with her hair down, dabbing at her face with a thick white towel.
Why can't I ever wash my face like that? Even considering that I have no bathrobe, & my sink is molded into my 15 year old bathroom counter, with water stains, and none of my towels are white (and many are not thick) and my hair does stick up around my headband so I do resemble an extra in the Star Wars canteena scene (especially once I get the cleanser on my face), you'd think after a couple decades practice I would be able to splash water on my face without it going all over the counter, the floor & myself. Really. Cup water, lean forward, bring hands to face at full horizontal position. But no.

Wordless Wednesday

Crochet edition.

And I figured out how to use the Super Macro setting on my camera - only 3 years later!!

6 years ago today

 

6 years ago today I became a mother & we became parents. Havoc came silently into the world but after waiting just long enough to freak out his anxious parents, set up a howl that would last almost continuously for 4 months. We called him our little howler monkey.

 

Happy Birthday Havoc!

An active weekend

Saturday we spent the morning here doing outdoor chores. We went to a friend's house for the afternoon. DH & Will went off to a coworkers house warming party for a few hours while Mel & I sat around knitting & crocheting and the 4 kids ran around the yard.  Then we all went to dinner. Fortunately it was a badly lit chain restaurant because the kids were filthy from running in the woods for 3 hours.

Sunday we did a few chores and then left to spend the day down by the river on some property some other friends' own. They were out of town but don't mind if we just hang out there. It's undeveloped and used for camping. It is a 2 hour drive. Along the way we discovered that they were back home, so we altered the plan to visit them & then go to the property. Once we got there the plan eventually changed again to just hanging out there. DH helped Max with closing his pool for winter and the kids ran around on the huge piles of dirt & gravel they have for a patio they are pouring. We did some digging.

We spent a lot of time outside this weekend to make up for all the time we spent inside last weekend. But now I need a weekend off. I want to just layout around the house for a weekend.

Pixie gave me some kafir grains, which you use to make a milk based beverage that is like super charged yogurt. It has all those probiotics & things in it & is really simple to handle.  It has a taste a bit more like buttermilk on it's own but mixed with juice & fruit it's just like yogurt. Havoc has been having some stomach issues lately & I've been feeding that Dannon yogurt with the probiotics in it & it seems to help. It's going to take about 48 hour to get this first batch made & then we'll give it a try for the rest of the week. Pixie is really into all natural, organic, things, the whole crunchy parenting thing.  She also told me about tea tree oil to get rid of lice. The boys haven't brought a note home from school yet about lice, but next time I'm down near the health food store I am going to get some.  She's going  email me a bug repellant recipe that uses it and lavendar as well.

I almost finished the neck warmer I am making for DH. Had plenty of time in the car.

Now I have about 4 loads of laundry to catch up. I also have to go to the gym, the grocery store,the library and then make cupcakes for Havoc's class for tomorrow. It's his 6th birthday tomorrow.

Weekly Winners Sept 29 to Oct 3

We took a mini vacation early in the week, along with some friends of ours. We went to an indoor waterpark.

We spent a lot of time in the water

The older kids were finally big enough to go on the slides on their own

Mayhem got some new shoes

Then we went mini golfing.

"Oh so that's why the adults told us not to hit the balls so hard"

"I can't believe they were right about the balls going in the water"

I can always get a photo of everyone looking away from the camera

I know you are wondering "But what about the dinosaurs?!?"

They stayed home this time.

Apparently, while we were gone, they had a wild party that got out of hand & someone called the cops.

For more Weekly Winners visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom

Scrapbook Saturday

Visit MammaDawg for more Scrapbook Saturday

They don't want me

This is the only political post you will get from me.

First a PSA

I don't care who you vote for, just vote. Even if you don't care for either of the guys running for President, vote. There are many more offices & local legislation on the ballot, not just the President. Your state representative is being chosen, your senator might be up, your governor, your local mayor, sheriff, council member, your local rep to the state legislature, local laws & bonds you might have only heard about in passing could be on that ballot. Don't pass up your chance to enact law or elect actual lawmakers simply because you are unhappy with the executive branch options. Don't fill in that option if you don't like either of them. The ballot is not a test. It's ok to leave that one blank. The rest of your votes still count & will have a far greater immediate effect on your life personally.

That's the PSA

Now, on to me & how I am feeling unwanted & unloved, yet oddly pleased.

I live in a 'battleground' state. I am a registered independent voter. So is DH. We are middle class folks, married, with kids. We are the people who will swing the vote. You'd think we'd be in demand. You'd think we'd be inundated with party specific mail & party specific phone calls. You'd think everyone on both sides would be trying to convince us they are our last best hope and would be caging for our vote, promising tax cuts and showcasing the horror that will descend upon us should the other guy win .

But no.  Only one side is.

The Republicans are very interested in us. Not just in an NRA affiliated way either. They mail me personally as often as they mail DH, and not just about guns. I get letters about the economy, taxes, abortion, the environment and the war. Every candidate they have running for any office we can vote for has sent us something. I have information and talking points on the Republican platform out the wazoo. I could start a decent bonfire with all the mailers they have sent me. Several trees have died just so I could have bullet pointed information. We have received so many phone calls from their election groups that I am starting feel stalked. I don't know if you can get a restraining order against the entire Republican party but I'm starting to think I might need to look into it.

Perhaps though they are just making up for the neglect of the Democrats.

I haven't heard one word from anyone even vaguely associated with any Democrat running for office, except on blogs. Nothing directed to me personally. They don't write. They never call. Leaving me sit and stare at the phone & wonder if they like me. I don't even know who the Democrat is who running against our current Republican House Representative or for state legislature. That is how little I have heard from them. Not even a mailer listing their candidates running for office in my state.

I'm not sure if they just haven't gotten around to it yet, or if they assume since I live in a red county it is pointless to bother me. (There are 14 McCain posters and one Obama poster in a 5 mile radius of my house) Maybe they think I'm already going to vote for them. Maybe they think they don't need me. Possibly they have learned that I am married to a small government loving, fiscally conservative, socially liberal, agnostic Libertarian gun nut.  Or that I have said on several forums that I am probably going to vote for Bob Barr. Maybe they wrote us off as a waste of postage & phone time. Points to them in that case for sound fiscal planning.

I'm not sure if this neglect is a pro or a con. On the one hand it is nice to know you are wanted. So I am a tad bit irritated the Democrats don't want me. If I was the sort of person to vote on a whim, or was dithering, their neglect to even send me a list of their candidates could push me to the Republicans, who very obviously do want me. After all, I agree with many of their stated goals

On the other hand I find political advertisements, pamphlets and snappy sound bites very annoying. They are all buzz words with no actual action plan. There simply is not enough time or space in mailers and prerecorded phone calls to include much substance. So I am a tad bit irritated with the Republicans for their incessant badgering. If I was the sort of person to vote on a whim, or was dithering, I might just be annoyed enough to vote Democrat because they have had the decency not to bother me. After all, I agree with many of their stated goals.

I mostly just wonder why I have been overlooked by the Democrats. I voted in the Democratic primary, so it isn't as if they don't have my name & address. Maybe if I had kids who played soccer....

Terrible 4s

Mayhem has just been a real pip lately. Whiney, complaining, nothing on offer is what he wants to do, he hates things he was excited about 5 minutes earlier & the least little thing sets him off.  I'm sure it's just a phase but it's a really irritating phase & I am not sure how to respond to it.

We ignore it, we coddle it, we punish it, we reason with it as the mood strikes us. We are consistent with regularly occurring events like the bedtime delaying tactics and check out line demand for candy.  We're consistent about not giving in to the demand itself. But we're not so consistent at our response to the surrounding drama.

Tuesday's drama about claiming to be sad because we were leaving the park but refusing to actually play in the park and instead whining about wanting a gummy lizard was initially ignored but as the noise level increased was punished with a time out until he calmed down. This took a great deal of time because he was making himself cry and then insisting that only a gummy lizard could make him calm down. I ignored him. It went on for almost half an hour, then it was time to leave & he wailed for a bit about not getting to go swimming & how he WANTED to swim & only swimming would make him calm down. We put a movie on in the car & ignored him. He stopped after a few minutes.

Yesterday's drama about not wanting to eat dinner, even though not 5 minutes earlier he was excited about the meatloaf. He wailed about not wanting to go to his room until he calmed down, got him sent to his room, where he made himself cry and wail for the entire meal. You can tell from the tone of his cries when he is actually done crying but feels the need to continue for effect because he hasn't had his way yet. We ignored it for the entire meal but since it had been 20 minutes I then went back there & sat with him, talking to him, getting him to calm & then suggesting he just eat a bite of dinner & then he can go play. "NNOOOO!!!!!  WANT DESSERT!!!" Well, then you have to eat all 8 pieces of meatloaf "NNNOOOO!!!! THAT WILL TAKE FOR EVER!!!" followed by more forced crying and sobbing claims that getting dessert after eating one bite of meatloaf is the only thing that will make him stop crying. Not going to happen. This went on for 10 minutes. Eventually, after 2 false starts down the hall he went back to the table, ate all his meatloaf and had a saltine (they pick their desserts, right now saltines are dessert to them).

I'm assuming this is a new attempt in his on going struggle to get his way, but I can tell he doesn't really know what his 'way' is sometimes. Yesterday's dinner drama actually started with being asked if he wanted mustard, moved on to hating dinner, wanting to watch tv, and then wanting dessert, though initially he was just not happy about his mustard choices. He was trying it on. Seeing what he could get out of it. He is trying to figure out how to manipulate me, he has very clear "You have to do this to make me stop" demands & they change over the course of the tantrum as I refuse to give in. I hope he gets it through his head that this method doesn't work soon because my patience with the forced cries & sobs is wearing thin.

Home again

Had a blast at Great Wolf Lodge for the most part.  Mayhem had some seriously whiny & sulky moments that were a bit much. He didn't want to do anything, go anywhere, just sit in the room. Then he'd ask how long we were staying & pitch a fit that we were leaving the next day because he wanted to stay longer. Sorry, kid but you can sulk around a bedroom at home for free. Other than those moments though, we had a lot of fun. I have 208 photos taken at a good distance, with low lighting, to prove it! Havoc completed 3 MagiQuest adventures and went several times on the boggie board. Mayhem collected the final runes he needed to start doing MagiQuest adventures and spent a lot of time running around the tree fort.  I went up a great many stairs, a great many times, lugging a single or double innertube each time. My friend Mel and I were on an exercise mission - THIGHS OF STEEL!  DH did a lot of boogie boarding and chasing Mayhem around the treehouse

So now I am home, with 3 loads of laundry to do and a kitchen that is mysteriously full of crumbs when it had been wiped down & swept before we left. Despite bringing my computer with me and logging on Sunday night & yesterday afternoon, I have about 200 emails, I am behind about 150 Entrecard drops, need to read about 1000 posts in the SkinnyJeans forum, about 75 threads on SSDs forum, a huge number on Raverly, god only knows how many posts in my blog reader and I haven't even looked at the mom blog boards I visit.  I'm seriously considering marking everything read and starting clean. Maybe reading stuff from today and marking the rest read.... I'll probably end up skimming everything... I did read my Twitter DMs, responses and about 40 of the most recent Tweets, so do I feel I am caught up somewhere at least.

Weekly Winners will contain many heavily altered photos of Great Wolf Lodge and *gasp* probably no dinosaurs.  They did not come with us.

hhmmmm...

I think I know where the crumbs in the kitchen may have come from.

Weekly Winners Sept 22-28

This tree is up the road a little from our house.

Havoc finds swinging has gotten a bit stale so he goes looking for a new challenge

New Legos. I can now pretend Harrison Ford is in my house *sigh*

Looks like the bracheasuar missed breakfast

We made fall sugar cookies. Dinos are not much good at that so we had to keep them away. They were not happy.

They are guarding the cooling the cookies 'so nothing happens to them'. Would you trust them?

I crocheted this guy one night this week for a friend as a charm to keep the bad energy away

For more weekly winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom

Scrapbook Saturday

This is my dad when he was about 6-8 months old. Today is his 70th birthday.

Ah vacation, but so much packing!

We're going on a 3 day vacation this weekend.  We're headed to Great Wolf Lodge which is an indoor water park & theme hotel.  They also have a great game called MagicQuest to suck up your time when you want a break from swimming.  This will be our third visit in a year.

Havoc wanted to go there last year for his birthday, so we did. Then we went in March because they offered us a great deal and this time we are again going for Havoc's birthday (even though it is 10 days away, this was the cheaper of the weekends available). Having done this a couple of times now I am far better at knowing what to bring.

2 suits each, because nothing is worse than putting on a cold clammy suit you took off 2 hours ago when you came back to the room for lunch or a break.

Clothespins. They have a line in the bathroom but no pins.

Several pairs of sweats or other comfy pants to lounge around the room in because inevitably someone will drop a wet suit on them rendering them unwearable.

Pajamas. They do an interactive story time at 8pm for the kids & everyone shows up in their pajamas for it. Except our kids, who sleep in their underwear generally, or random t shirts. They do have pajamas & do wear them from time to time, but not often enough that I always remember to pack them if we are only gone a couple nights.

Extra towels, because no matter how many they give you in the room or in the park, you will never have enough if you leave the park more than once in the day. Especially if you have people like me along, who insist on having a DRY towel, not a damp towel, when they get out of the shower. We generally are in and out of the park 3 times a time taking breaks for lunch, snack, MagiQuest, etc.

Food & drink - MY GOD their food is expensive!!! We brought nothing but some juice for the kids the first time we went. I was floored by the amount we spent on food.  The food is good but I'm never overjoyed to spend $8-9 on a sandwich. Buffets are wasted on my picky eaters and the cost of a soda & a bag of chips is ridiculous. Last time we brought cereal, drinks, stuff to make PB&Js, fruit and snacks. There is a fridge in the room. There is a Pizza Hut in the place so we had that one night rather than the buffet and the next night we went out to iHop. This time I remembered they sell Pepsi products & bought some bottles of it and Apple juice that we can refill in our rooms with our stuff because no outside food & beverages are allowed in the water park & who can tell if that is Coke & not Pepsi in that Pepsi bottle.

Comfy clothes & shoes for running around the place on MagiQuest. The boys can't read well enough yet & aren't really old enough to be let off on their own & the game takes you all over 2 wings and 2 floors of the hotel, many many times.

An assortment of excuses for why we are not going into the arcade, should the path from our room to the park take up past it. An arcade is money down the drain with a 4 & 5 year old. They want to play all the racing games but can't & only last 10 seconds on the ones they can manage. Last time we went we managed to avoid going near the arcade at all & the boys never asked about it.

Both laptops.  DH is on his all evening long after the kids are in bed & I never got a turn without a lot of gumbling.  They have free wifi in the rooms!

Portable DVD player & movies. Mostly for the drive up and back which is almost 3 hours, but usually there is a movie break in the afternoon of the second day.

We'll be gone 2 nights. My car will be just as crammed with stuff (due to the food mostly) as it is when we go for 10 days to visit my folks.

Memes & Awards Oh My!

Kat at Mother Fonker tagged me with a meme. 6 quirky things about me

1.I over explain things to the kids when it is a subject I know a lot about. They asked why cave people & Native Americans wore animal skins and not T-shirts and I explained that they lacked the knowledge of the fiber art technology necessary to spin and weave plant products in sufficient quantities to warmly clothe themselves completely. Using those exact words, to my 4 and 5 year old. DH said "They only had animals available to make clothes from". yeah. what he said

2. I use lots of quotes from 80's Britcoms in my everyday speech. Fortunately the vast majority of my friends have seen the shows.

3. If I am not quoting Britcoms, I am quoting Douglas Adams

4. I have 4 tattoos. Got my first one when I was 33.

5. I can't relax in my living room if things aren't all put away. At least stuffed in bins out of sight.

6. I can read a book and crochet at the same time.

Tara at Tara's View of the World and Juliana at Juliana's Site both gave me the Proximidade Award

This is a Portugese award, Proximidade means vicinity or neighborhood, this is the original translated blurb

"They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text."

I'm supposed to pass it on to 8 other bloggers

Nikki at http://mymanycoloreddays2.blogspot.com/
Tracy at http://tracyducar.blogspot.com/
Traci at http://www.scraplifescrap.blogspot.com/
Becca at http://beccab04.blogspot.com/
Lauren at http://laurengrier.blogspot.com/
Crystal at http://crystalbellasstuff.blogspot.com/
Col at http://brodony0123.blogspot.com/
Chels at http://myscraproom85.blogspot.com/

I got this great award from Christy at Motherhood-Unscripted

I'm supposed to pass it on to 7 other bloggers

Becky at http://www.mommywantsvodka.com/
Jen at http://cheaperthantherapyjen.blogspot.com/
Rachel at http://followinginmyshoes.blogspot.com/
Karen at http://3garnetsn2sapphires.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth at http://jogginginplace.blogspot.com/
Miss Fussy Pants at http://www.fussypants.com/
Elizabeth at http://www.threechannels.com/

Mabon or the Autumn Equinox

Yesterday was the Equinox, called Mabon amongst the Wiccan & some pagans. It is a day of balance, the second of the three harvest festivals & often called the Witches Thanksgiving. The leaves dropping their leaves & going into their long winter sleep is a sign to start drawing inward ourselves, to change our focus from the wide world to the world of our home or to our own inner world. Now would be a good time to start that study course you have been putting off. As the light begins diminishing until Yule, now is the time to work on diminishing the things in your life that are not working for you. I'm working on diminishing my hair trigger annoyance & my shouting. I am also working on lessening my spending. Once I have those under control, I will work on increasing my patience & my income come Imbolc (Feb 2)

Little boys don't really get the personal working part of the holiday just yet. We instead just focus on nature. It's been warm here & the trees are still very green. They are having a hard time settling down for their winter sleep. We decided to read them bedtime stories for Mabon and Havoc suggested they needed warm blankets, so we mulched around them as well. We divided the yard into 4 areas and I sat and read in each area while Havoc went from tree to tree to make sure they could all hear me. Then we sprinkled mulch around them and told them good night. (for the spring equinox we go around with drums and things waking them up). Mayhem went inside to watch Cyberchase but Havoc and I went an gathered some black walnuts. I explained to him hold the walnut and make a wish for something he wanted to change about himself. We talked about things that could be changed and ways to phrase it and how to ask the Divine to help you make the change. Once we had our wished thought out we sat holding the nuts and asking Her/Him's aid & blessing. Then we buried the nuts. While they are changing underground waiting for spring to come to life, the changes we asked for are slowly changing us inside.

I would have liked to have a more Mabon-ish meal - Chicken & Parsnips braised in apple cider, but the little boys howled about that. They'd had odd or unfamiliar meals 2 nights in a row and wanted pizza. So we had chicken topped pesto pizza and apple juice for dinner.

I think I may make apple walnut bread today just to get it out of my system.

Bragging on my fab crochet skillz

That'd be sarcasm, BTW

I finished the amigurumi octopus for Havoc. He chose the rainbow colored yarn for it.

I've been experimenting with how to create different shape effects with amigurumi and I created a bunch of mushrooms while doing it.

Then I decided to focus on making something for a friend to keep the bad energy away and I made this traffic cone

Then I got my hands on some googly eyes and the mushrooms gained some personality.

The traffic cone became an angry traffic cone

I think he is just the cutest thing ever.

The traffic cone came about as a result of 2 things. First I was going to make a witches hat for a little crochet person I had made recently (There is no photo of said person because it seems to have vanished & I am pretty annoyed about that because I never wrote the pattern down & now have to start over) The problem is I really didn't want to do all those close stitches in black (3sc in a circle, then 4sc, then 5 sc, etc - pain in the butt in black yarn & I am over black yarn from the penguin). The other thing was a friend of mine was joking that she calls traffic cones buried safety witches. (witchy humor). Last night those 2 thoughts met in my mind and decided to make a traffic cone & try & square off the rounded hat brim corners. Then I glued on the googly eyes. Cute but it needed something. This traffic cone is a gift for a friend who is dealing with some negative stuff in her life & I figured what better to keep unwanted things away than an angry traffic cone. So I was sitting here thinking I was pretty clever typing this up when it occurred to me I had seen crochet traffic cones before. I googled it and sure enough - Alicia did it first. Hers don't appear to be angry & have different eyes, but it is the same idea. Hers are stuffed & mine isn't but I think the next one I make will use her idea of sewing it to a crocheted square. I wish I had remembered this before I started experimenting with creating a cone on my own. Would have saved me a bunch of time. But I was googling crochet witches hat and not traffic cone.

I'm thinking of selling the mushrooms & the traffic cones on Etsy, along with the little bags that I make.

I'm saving up to buy a D40 camera & every little bit helps, plus I have a huge stock of yarn already so the set up costs were covered long ago. I just need a name. I like The Magical Mushroom or something to that effect but I haven't had time to go out & see what is already & use. Any suggestions would be appreciated

Weekly Winners Sept 14-20

I have a mixed bag this week

The view from our driveway

Roadside weed flower

The killer vine weed. I am highly allergic to it, which is why it has taken over the veggie garden.

In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day there was some digging for buried treasure

Look! The loch ness monster!

I think the dinos get bored during the day with the boys in school.I find them in the oddest places.

"Oh hai! We can haz muffinz plz?"

Things don't look good for teddy

I finally finished the octopus I have been working on for Havoc. He chose a variegated rainbow yarn.

For more weekly winners visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom.