Getting Down With Your Crafty Self

Every once in a while, I get down with my crafty, bad self (bad being the key word). I used to be quite crafty...before I had tiny human beings who sucked away my creativity along with most of my brain cells.

I could draw, I could paint, I could sketch, I could sew. I could also put my legs behind my head, so I guess most of my talents are kapoot.

Now I'm lucky if I don't super glue my fingers together or sew all my arm holes closed. I made Milo a dog bed the other day and I was so distracted by the three ring circus around me, I put the buttons on the wrong side. No way was I gonna rip em off and start over because I have the Universe's Smallest Needles and I didn't want to thread them again. Besides, it's not as if he has thumbs with which to button.

Lick thread...squint...poke...miss...trim thread...drop needle...lick thread...squint...draw blood...lose button...

But if it's super easy, we're talking mega simple, and CHEAP, I just may get out the ol' hot glue gun, and go nuts.

Did I mention cheap? I heart cheap. You're talking to a person who literally has a shoelace in her hair as a headband at this moment. This is how cheap I am today:

I needed a scrap of lace and surprisingly, had none. Not the teensiest bit. Not a smidge. Not even a tad bit of lace ribbon. I had seen something on pinterest with a empty picture frame (of which I have several that languish sadly in my cupboard because my hubby called them creepy hanging on the wall). Behind the picture frame is either ribbons of lace, or just lace. This lace is perfect for earrings. I used a mixture of nails and fabric glue to stick it into place. I also may or may not have glued my fingers together.

I also needed something for my necklace collection. I took the largest frame and hammered in a bunch of nails. This looked terrible when done, I confess. But once hung on the wall and adorned with necklaces, it looked super cool!

Wait. I was talking about cheap lace. So, anyway, I went to Goodwill, my home away from home, and when I refused to spend the $2.99 they wanted for a lace table runner, I snagged a lacy baby girl's dress for .99 . Voila!

Pardon the cell phone pictures. I still have no camera - hence the phone shots, sent to Facebook, then downloaded.

Here's the earring one:

And here are the two of them together. They're getting along great.

I love throwing stuff away

My garage is calling me. It's saying,


Come get these free craigslist chairs you acquired last year and put them out on the curb.


If I obey the call, I can get to the important stuff in there - like my box of sewing supplies, the kid's off season clothing, and the contraband supply of Hagan Daaz in my freezer. 

Truer words were never spoken.


Anyway, one of the best feelings in the world (okay, yes, that's an exaggeration. There are probably better feelings: feeding orphans, saving lives, winning the lottery, a really good sneeze, eating secret ice cream, etc) is the feeling I get when I throw things away.


Not only do I love shopping at the Goodwill, but I love having a pile of stuff to give to the Goodwill. This is recycling at its finest. 


It works for toys too. Want that ridiculous, overpriced piece of junk, do you? Okay, but you'll have to give away two ridiculous, overpriced pieces of junk out of your exploding bedroom, kid. Win, win. 


Today, I threw out an empty shampoo bottle and a very nearly empty bottle of conditioner. I probably could have added some water in there, shook it around, and had enough to rinse my curly locks with, but I was feeling giddy with the thrill of throwing things out. This gave me opportunity - nay, NEED - to replace them with two shiny new bottles. Which, if you're a girl, is super exciting. Or maybe I don't get out much. Don't rain on my parade. I like products. 
As much as I like em though, I limit myself. Once upon a marriage, Mike had this in our shower:


A bottle of Suave shampoo.
A dull razor.


And I had in the same shower:


Apricot scrub.
Four half empty bottles of shampoo.
Regular conditioner.
Deep conditioner.
Leave in conditioner.
Conditioner that didn't work well, but smelled great.
Conditioner that didn't smell great, but worked well.
Two razors. (I dunno why, stop interrogating me!)
Make up remover.
Face mask.
Shave cream.
Body scrub.
Soap.
Homemade oatmeal facial exfoliating scrub.
Apple cider vinegar for rinsing.
A book for baths.
Bubble bath.
Candles.
Nail clippers.
Tooth brush.


Anyhoo, a few years later, and I think I've gotten better. We can now move a fraction of an inch without causing a domino effect. Now I have:


One shampoo.
One conditioner.
One body wash that I don't actually use, but someone gave me and it looks cute sitting there.
One razor.
Soap.
Small bottle of olive oil for removing make up.


Speaking of showers, does anyone else do this:
You're showering, minding your own business, singing television theme songs from the eighties and nineties, and everything's fine, all's good, the kids wander in and out, the dog walks by, yada yada. Then you go to wash your face and have to close your eyes. Instant mental imagery of a ax murderer outside the shower curtain.


No? Just me? Never mind. Forget I said anything.


So, the point is, throw something away today. You'll be glad you did.


P.S. If you need a place to start, think under the sinks. Kitchen, bathroom, it doesn't matter. Odds are there are things under there you DO NOT NEED. No one needs six different kinds of cleaners or seven bottles of body lotion you didn't like anyway, or three deodorants that didn't work for you, or candles with the wicks lost inside the wax. Throw it all out! Really. You're going to feel so much better. Today, the under the sink cabinets, tomorrow the garage!

My love affair with pizza cutters (and all things pizza) has been passed down to my youngest offspring.  He was talking off the very ears of the repair man come to fix our sink this morning.

This morning at 7:48 a.m.  Isn't there a law against that kind of punctuality?  When repair men say I'll be there at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, don't they really mean, I'll be there at 6 p.m. next Groundhog's Day?  What's up with this wonkiness?

Anyway, Moose was precariously perched above Repair Man's head, nestled in the sink, chattering nonstop about Darth Vader, Strawberry Shortcake gum, the dentist, squishy-squashies, muscle tone, and what he wants for Christmas 2012:  a pizza cutter of his very own.  What a nut.  I can't imagine where he gets it.

My plant shelves are still barren.  Like a barren desert wasteland.  Sometimes a tumbleweed tumbles by. Or a camel.  It's a cross between a desert and a ghost town, that's why, now stop interrupting!  Anyway, that's all the action my plant shelf sees.  I tried to find some of those cool empty picture frames (even though my husband tells me they look creepy.  I told him HE looks creepy.  I'm mature like that) but no one seems to sell any.  I advertised on craigslist but the only one to reply wanted twenty dollars.  What am I, made of money?  I think I'll try the particular Goodwill that sold me the painting of the four legged ballerina...they should have some appallingly bad art that I could buy simply for the frames.

Do you ever get the feeling that I actually have nothing to blog about?
So do I.

Do you ever get the feeling that I blog because Facebook has a status update word limit?
Pshaw.  Pshaw, I tell you!

Do you ever get the feeling that I am blogging to avoid homeschooling my children?
I can't believe you'd suggest such a thing.

I refuse to homeschool EVER AGAIN until someone buys me a decent pencil sharpener.  I'm not kidding.  I quit.  I could wake up at five every  morning and sharpen eighteen hundred pencils and they would still mysteriously disappear or break by mid morning when someone desperately needs one, which leaves the minions doing their math completely wrong and in a permanent marker and leaves their mother writing a rent check with the busted tip of half a crayon.

What?  You've never written a check with a crayon?

Speaking of homeschooling, Pizza Cutter Boy is teaching himself to read, in spite of me yelling, Knock it off!    I don't appreciate this kind of early learning.  Humph.  I've done the reading and the research!  I am all for letting my son get there when he's ready...not forcing...not starting formal school until he's eight...or eighteen.  He's a boy!  A squirmy, silly, short attention spanned, BOY!  He's not ready to "do school!"  I'm not ready for it; I have a Kid In My Classroom Limit and it's TWO.  He can't start school until his big sister graduates.  Holy rusted metal, Batman, I am not teaching you to read and that's final!  Why don't my kids ever listen to me?

I guess I could sharpen pencils with all my pizza cutters.
(she admits, grudgingly).

HELP Part II

Okay, minions, here's what I want:

A stack of old, vintage-y (I say vintage-y and not vintage because I can afford vintage-y and not vintage) suitcases.

Empty frames.  Not even vintage-y, but full on broken and therefore cheap  free.  Maybe.

Now somebody come over and make these things happen!

While we're wistfully daydreaming of decorating here are a few more inspirations:

What think you, minions?

HELP!

I am not a decorating genius.  I admit it.  I know what I like and I'm great at picking things out at stores (and not buying them), clipping out photos from Country Living (and losing them), and organizing my Pinterest wall (without implementing them), but I am terrible at knowing what will work in my space.

I have friends who are great at decorating.  My friend, Tawni, does nutty things like paints her fireplace mantle purple and while we all titter behind her back at her insane ideas, she ends up with the coolest looking living room ever.

My friend, Mariah, spray paints everything black.  It works.

But they refuse to come over and help me, so I need your help.

Two areas:

Area #1:  plant shelf.  Who invented these dumb things anyway and what am I supposed to do with it?
I don't do plants.
Also, I am not 13 feet tall.

Area #2:  weird little cubby niche thing.  What am I to do with this?


Please help me.  Consider it charity.

Paint, Unicorns, and Drowned Ancestors

I own three cameras (not counting my phone) but I can't make any of them work.  One had its batteries fried inside it (they sorta 'sploded), one is brand spanking new but either its a lemon or the only AAA batteries I can find are dead as a doornail, and the other is the camcorder which also takes still pictures but it needs to be charged and I don't which one of our 3354839.34i87 cords and wires and plug in thingies will do the trick.


So, I can't put up photos of our cute house.  But that's okay because most certainly there'd be a two foot high gremlin with his fingers up his nostrils stealing the camera anyway.


I'm not much of a decorator.  Some women (you know who you are) are really amazing at knowing what to buy, what not to buy, where to put it, what colors to use, etc.  I'm not that woman.  And after our little stint as professional parents came to a close, we were forced to realize we don't own anything.  Here's what we had in June:


each other.


boxes of clothes.


boxes of books.


a Kitchen-aid mixer.


photos.


That's it.  Not a stick of furniture or a wooden spoon with which to stir the spaghetti sauce which is fine actually, because you can't make spaghetti without a pot.


So, little by little, we've managed to get the bare necessities: a sectional couch that looks like everyone else's brown sectional couch except ours is stuffed with spike balls, a free kitchen table with four chairs (count the people in our family and you may see the problem, but hey, the kids have small tushies and can share), a bunk bed, a mattress set, some Goodwill dishes, and an embarrassing number of pizza cutters and ice cream scoops.  Why?  I don't know.  Evidently every time I was in a thrift shop the past three months, I had a panic attack that we would someday have pizza and/or ice cream and have nothing with which to slice/scoop.  So, if the world indeed ends in 2012 like John Cusack said it would, I will at least have my pizza cutters and ice cream scoops.  Cuz there might be zombies or something.  I don't know if there will be, but it's only logical.  I can slice em up and then scoop out their brains.


Anyway, I was supposed to be walking you through our house.  So, back to the decorating.  The only successful thing I've done with decorating is my collection of black and white photos.  It's our Family Wall and it's come with us no matter where we've gone.  I think that sentence is grammatically WRONG, but you get my drift.  Everyone is our relative, some we knew personally, some are much too far gone for us to have known.  One is of Mike's aunt who is standing in front of the projects of NY city where she grew up: a pretty Italian girl with her black hair blowing in the breeze and wearing gloves and a scarf that look fashionable now but were probably all she owned to keep the cold out.  Another favorite is my great, great, great Grandma (totally guessing the number of greats there) Loretta, who rumor has it, died after being baptized in the Columbia River in 1877.  I'd love to know if this family legend has any truth to it and Cora and I plan on doing some genealogy this school year.  Also on the wall: my dad as a chubby toddler, both of my grandpas in their military uniforms, my grandpa as a baby in the arms of his mom who looked like a totally rockin' '20s flapper, my mom and my mom-in-law as curly haired little girls, and plenty of my own kids in black and white. 


We also bought: a hutch that doubles as a tv stand for our wee little tv, and several dressers.  You remember the craigslist dresser, right?  So, being me, I of course had to take as many shortcuts as possible with this thing, in terms of making it presentable.  It is beautiful wood with scalloped edges and just lovely, but some dingbat had painted it diarrhea brown.  No problem, says I, we'll buy the cheapest white paint on the market and that'll be that.  Well, I thought I bought the "paint and primer in one" deal, but I did not, and the diarrhea turned the weirdest shade of pepto bismol pink.  A second coat did not solve this predicament. I was in a pickle.  Also, I was out of paint.  Also, I was in trouble with my mother in law for getting paint on her patio.  That reminds me, if you're reading this, honey, will you go over to your Mom's and clean that up?  Thanks, love muffin!  Anyway, at this point I was really getting annoyed with myself and had to go buy primer.  Then I had to go buy more paint.  Then I was really high on fumes and started painting unicorns and sunbeams everywhere.  Eventually I got my dresser white.  Even though it was for Anna and she was mad that I covered up the pepto pink.  Ungrateful pixie! 


So when you're me, this is how you buy a used dresser:


1.  Risk your life and almost get chopped into pieces by craigslist sellers in remote locations.  Spend $30.


2.  Paint with cheapest paint possible. I bought a small can because I actually had two dressers to paint: $10.  The other one had to be painted because it was owned by smokers.  Smokers who evidently crawled inside their dresser to do their smoking.


3.  Go back to Lowes.


4.  Buy primer. $5.


5.  Whine a little.


6.  Enjoy the fumes.  Hum a little Doors.


7.  Go back to Lowes.  $5.


8.  Finish with spray paint.


Bask in the glory that is your $30 $50 dresser.  Easy as pie!  Except I may or may not have killed a couple brain cells.  Pretty sure I wasn't using them anyway, so no loss.


Also, when you're me you don't own a pie pan and your kids clamor for chicken pot pie and so you make it in a large skillet.  And it looks totally fabulous, like something on the cover of Martha Stewart magazine, and they snarf it all up before you can take a picture.  Which you can't do anyway because of all those cameras you can't figure out.  But it was pretty.  And it was good.  And so was my homemade pumpkin spice coffee creamer.  Also, no photo.


The end.

Houses and What Lies Therein

This coming week we move into our own home.  We are a little bit excited.  A little thrilled.  A little elated and a little frothing at the mouth.  It's just been too long (two years) since we've lived somewhere with just us five.  That's too long by anyone's standards.  We always have adventures in moving and we already know what one of our adventures will be:

We will find something in our new house after oh, say, six months of living there.  In our old house in Idaho we found a window after living in that house for two years.  A window, you say?  Like a window pane, stuck high in a closet somewhere?  No, I mean an actual window, in an actual wall, in our actual house, with an actual view into our actual backyard.

Not much gets by us.  We're kinda like Nancy Drew married to Frank Hardy.  A Bobbsey Twin who hooked up with 007.  Velma and Freddy's love child.  We are extremely observant human beings.  I don't blame you if you feel a little intimidated.

Hey!  I just noticed a cup holder in my van!  Whoa!  When'd that get there?

So anyway, this particular window was finally ferreted out by my detectively skilled #1 Husband who was out in the backyard one day.  He came back inside with a peculiar look on his face and told me to go to the bathroom and listen.  I did.  He leaves.  I hear knocking on the wall.  I follow the sound.  It appears to be coming from the sink.  Perhaps it's an Englishman banging two coconuts together?  Could it be Eric Idle living under my sink?  I look behind the mirror that is hung up behind the faucet.  Voila!  A view of my husband's baffled face.

We had always kind of wondered why that mirror had a window ledge below it  and more than one frame.

Not a lot gets by us.

What the??!  Have I always had a dog?

We're like Perry Mason meets Trixie Belden.  Shaggy meets Flavia de Luce.  Hercule Poirot meets Agatha Christie.  Which would be logical seeing as she made him up.  Sam Spade meets Cherry Ames.  Kate Beckett meets Father Brown.

Anyway, we fully expect to find a bedroom we didn't know was there...or a refrigerator...or something way spiffy, like a garage.  Possibly within the first year of living there!  I'm very excited.  There could be a full basement!  Or a second story!  Or a hot tub!  The possibilities are endless.

We're also looking forward to doing some home improvement and living up to our reputations in that area as well.  It may be difficult to live up to the ol' cribbage board holding up the window trick, or the infamous "I'll just plug this hole in the wall with my pants" idea, but we'll try.  Don't underestimate us.  Maybe we can plug a newly found window with our pants...

Wait, I have pants?!

Michael, just call him Ty Pennington, Williams strikes again

Some women marry home improvement gods. I married Mike.