So Misunderstood

Last Sunday we awoke to our first real accumulation of snow this season.  It was only a few inches, but it was still enough to excite our children and have Adelaide exclaiming, "Finally!  I was beginning to think we weren't going to get any snow this winter."  It was December 4th.

Because it's December, I've been venturing outside of my usual stores (Aldi, Fareway, and Aldi) to do some Christmas shopping.  This is always a highly entertaining time, because since I'm not used to visiting such a vast array of stores, so many of their contents are a novelty to me.  Behold:

Derek's mom gave me three small, conical foam trees a few years ago, and I'm just now getting to doing something with them, because our children are finally all old enough that I can do things like get out the hot glue gun without fearing for anyone's lives or digits.  I've hot glued pennies all over one (the effect is cooler than it sounds), but what to do with the other two?  I saw these and Hello, Inspiration!  A tree covered in eyeballs!

And another in hair!

Fortunately I walked out of the store with neither eyeballs nor hair, and with the fresh air returned my sanity.  Still looking for ideas as to what to cover those foam trees in, though, if you care to share.  Not strictly opposed to body parts.  (Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Derek reads this.)


In addition to such exotic stores as Target and Hobby Lobby, I'm on Pinterest more often this time of year (Christmas crafting, huzzah!), and for some reason Pinterest seems to be under the mistaken assumption that I'm one of those higher level, crazy-super-healthy eaters, so it keeps grossing me out with "Suggested Pins" like this one.

I mean, really, Pinterest, isn't the fact that I pinned this

and this

and this

 enough of a clue?

Now, I won't be eating all of those in the same week, but make no mistake, I will be eating them.  I'm not interested in your ocean witch's brew, Pinterest, even if it would prolong my life by five (sad and hungry) years.

Drinking From the Well of Wisdom; or, How I Pronounce 'Lawyer'

The people have spoken and they- you- said the word "lawyer" is pronounced "loyer."  I wish I could give you a compelling reason to say it my way (LAW-YER.  LAW-YER LAW-YER LAAAAWWW-YEEERRRR.), but I wasn't able find one during the initial debate with Derek.  At one point I thought I had a credible example backing me up, as I pointed out that there was a movie where the lawyer in it pronounced the word "law-yer," and wouldn't a lawyer know how to pronounce the name of his own profession?  But then I realized the movie was A Time to Kill and the actor in question was Matthew McConaughey, and anytime you're looking to Matthew McConaughey for wisdom or to back up your argument it's probably time to review your life choices.

Our culture is so misguided we hear this guy string random phrases together and call it profound. Here's the first MM quote a simple google search netted:

"There's a man I met 20 years ago. He escaped Russia. He was not even a carpenter, built a 17-foot boat and sailed across the Atlantic for decades he held the world record for smallest vessel single-man sailed across the Atlantic. He told me this, he said, 'A genius can be anybody he wants to, but a genius is always one person at a time.' So to that I say, that's what we get to do, isn't it? One man, one woman, one human. At a time. When we do it well. Just keep doing that. Just keep living."-  Matthew McConaughey

What?  Is that supposed to mean something?  Anything?  I thought Marilyn Monroe quotes haunting Pinterest were bad, but at least she's dead.  This guy could have decades yet to infect us with this brand of communicating.  Watch, I can do it, too.

"It's just, it's just about being amazing. If you walk, you will be amazing.  If you just keep walking.  You'll get somewhere.  Utah.  Enlightenment.  Applebee's.  Those all start with vowels.  So that's meaningful.  Start when you're a baby.  And never stop.  Just keep walking."  -Me, turning off my brain 


Or how about this gem?

"A man should always have his diary on him. That way he's guaranteed to always have something incredible to read." -Matthew McConaughey

That's right, friends!

Nah.

Pass.

Aw, yiss.

And that is why I forgive you if you pronounce the word 'lawyer' differently than I do.



Now- I want to hear you comment like McConaughey.  All you do.  Is break up what should be a normal sentence.  Into pieces.  Use periods.  With abandon.

Oh!  Or tell me what celebrity is quoted hither and yon and propped up as some kind of shaman that drives you craaaaazy.   Because I can't be the only one who puts on sackcloth and ashes every time she sees an actor used as True North on people's life compass, right?

That's More Like It

Thanks to wonderful, wonderful friends, I think I've almost got this Valentine-party-game-situation licked.  Adelaide is thank-you-God capable of addressing and preparing her own Valentines this year, so that's done.  At least, I assume it is.  I think I glanced her direction all of one time while she was filling them out the other day, and she seemed to have everything more or less under control.  She's come a long way, baby.

Atticus has been steadily working on Valentines for his classmates since Saturday, which meant that, as of 10 pm last night, all that was left to do for this completely useless holiday was prepare Atticus's Valentine box for his classroom.

Unfortunately I had made the mistake of searching Pinterest for "Valentine's Day boxes" while Atticus observed from over my shoulder.  It took several minutes to explain to him just how little I was willing to invest in this whole project:  Zero dollars and maybe two television episodes' worth of my time.  That wiped out 90% of the results on there, but he did find an Olaf box I decided was reasonably do-able.

According to the Olaf Valentine Box Tutorial, I needed:

• One empty Kleenex box
• White Cardstock
• Black Acrylic Paint
• Scissors
• One Orange Pompom
• Two White Pompoms
• One Black Pompom
• Rubber Cement
• Low Temperature Glue Gun and Glue
• Black Craft Foam
• White Craft Foam
• A Sharpie

Of those things, I had:

• One empty Kleenex box
• Scissors
• A Sharpie

Instead of all those fancy materials I cut up an empty granola bar box for various appendages and taped the heck out of the whole thing.  He also sports the tip of a real carrot for his nose, which is rather precariously attached to his face.  I thought about calling him White Trash Olaf, but Fiscally Conscious Olaf or Refurbished Olaf sounds way more pretentious and makes me sound like I made it this way intentionally due to my high-falutin' hippie ways.  The truth is I can't bear to buy all that stuff for something that will no doubt be trash in a matter of weeks.  

Good enough, says I, says Atticus, says Reused Household Materials Olaf.

Five Things Friday

Here's this week's five wonderful things, from me to you:

• About a year ago I came across a superb idea on Pinterest for a better way to fold t-shirts.  This sounds drab and dreary and boring, I know, but just hang on, now, because this may not transform your entire life, but it will transform a couple of your dresser drawers, which sounds trivial, but I swear to you I feel happy every time I open my t-shirt drawer.

We live in an old house that's short on storage space, most notably closets, but thankfully soon after we moved in Derek's grandpa built us a pair of built-in dressers for our bedroom.  Now I had a place for my clothes, but for some reason folding them the traditional way (why does this make me laugh?  like, "ah, yes, the folding methods of yore") created a slop pile of shirts within the drawer.  Enter this new, rolling way of folding!  (Click on the link above for specific instructions.)  It keeps wrinkles to a minimum, I can fit more clothing in each drawer, and I can see each item of clothing with no digging.  Perfect.

• This post on Ann Voskamp's blog about procrastination.  Listen, I'm a seasoned procrastinator.  Why do today what you can put off 'til tomorrow, and all that.  If there's something specific I'm putting off, my house will be clean, my books get read, I'll find all manner of things to do to put that loathsome activity off for as long as humanly possible.  I have gotten loads better in recent years (growing up and maturing and all that necessary junk), but still- I'm a procrastinator at heart.  This post helped me to fold a formidable mountain of laundry and shampoo the carpets and do a couple other things I'd been meaning to do for a day or two (WEEKS, OKAY?  I'd been putting off shampooing the carpets for weeks.).  My brain has already supplied some perfectly acceptable reasons not to wash the sheets and clean out the fridge this afternoon, so it looks like I'll be re-reading this post every other day until it sticks.  Hey, change takes time, right?

• Thunderstorms.  This is one of the things I missed most while living in Connecticut, although Derek and I did share some gleeful chortling on the rare occasion a smallish clap of thunder would boom in the Connecticut skies, causing the natives to flinch while casting fearful looks toward the heavens.  Oh, New England.  We've had tons of rain over the past week (and by "tons" I obviously mean 3 and 5/8 inches), but I've decided not to complain about it, because that rain has been accompanied by thunder and a smidgen of lightning- nothing really severe, just fun.  

• This book:

The woman describes what it's like to grow up lovingly ensconced in a small midwestern town with total accuracy, and does it with such humor that I had to lay my head down on the table a few times, I was laughing so hard.  This book made a rough day better.  I loved it so much I may have to get my own copy (gasp!).

• The eggs hatched!  Last Sunday evening I went to check the robins' nest, and behold:

See it?  Sweet little Ugly there, on the left?  

Based on my highly exact method of zooming in as much as possible and stretching my arm way up to snap a picture, I think there are three hideous baby robins in there.  Perhaps four.  Their mama's gone most of the time, no doubt hunting up tasty morsels for which they'll no doubt be completely ungrateful.  I should note that even when taking photos, I try not to get too close to the nest; I don't want to scare the mother off or leave my objectionable human scent all over the place.  Babies!

I'm Gonna Whimsy You To Death

My home will never grace the pages of a decorator magazine for many reasons, chief amongst them a lack of budget, awareness of trends, the fact that we have small children and therefore can't have not just nice things, but apparently things in general.  (Side note:  Why are children so destructive?  Why do I have to keep saying, "DO NOT hang on the cabinet doors.  DO NOT climb up the fridge.  DO NOT dig that metal spoon into the table."  Why?)

More than anything keeping us from magazine covers, though, is a little word called 'whimsy.'  Now, even magazine editors seems to appreciate some whimsy, but "some" seems to be the operative word there.  They like to sprinkle a little here and there, whereas I would like to unscrew the lid and dump the entire whimsical contents all over our house.

Alas, Derek cannot see the merits of living in the housing equivalent of Wonderland, so instead I get a Pinterest board labeled "Home Decorating," and every once in a while I look through it and imagine what would happen if I were ever to magically install every single one of those things in our home while Derek was at work one day.  Oh, the look my imagination puts on his face when he walks through the door.  Priceless.


First off, you'd have this mat welcoming you into our home:

via wanelo.com

As soon as you walk in the door, you see our stairs, which would look like this (assuming I could ever bring myself to paint them, which I probably could not):

via themetapicture.com

This would be on the wall (although where, I have no idea, as I'm pretty sure our house doesn't have a stretch of wall big enough for this anywhere- DETAILS):

via dwell.com

At least one room would have a wall featuring this wallpaper (it's COLORING WALLPAPER, YOU GUYS- wallpaper you can color.  Imagine how much we'll save on therapy.  I mean, coloring is soothing, right?):

via theberry.com

We would have this refrigerator (because TARDIS FRIDGE):

via

We would have a laundry chute- but not just any laundry chute, a porthole laundry chute:

via alleewillis.com

Our kitchen ceiling would look like this:

via notjustahousewife.net

These pillows would grace our couch (and before you look, just know that I am perfectly aware that this is where I will lose most of you- I can't help it.  Those cats make me laugh every time I look at them, and isn't that one of things you want from your home?):

via hautelook.hardpin.com

via hautelook.hardpin.com

via kohls.com

And these pillows would go on our rockers on the front porch:

via 

Oh, and this birdcage would have to be a light fixture somewhere in our house.  Actually, it would have to be the front room, as that's the only room that has ceilings tall enough to accomodate a birdcage light fixture:

via designsponge.com

Isn't it all so beautiful?  I lost you at the Kitty Hepburn pillow, didn't I?  What elements of whimsy would you add to your home?

Father's Day Questionnaire 2013

Hey, remember last year when I actually did something cool and helped our older two children complete a sweet Father's Day Questionnaire?  Well, a minor miracle occurred and 1) I remembered to do it again this year, and 2) I didn't lose last year's binder containing the questionnaires.  Sweet.

Here are this year's questionnaires, as completed by all three of our children.  (A big thanks to our local library- our printer ran out of ink, but when I ran to the library to use theirs, they were all being used by other patrons, so they let me use their office computer, because they are amazingly awesome.  Also awesomely amazing.  And nice.)  You may notice that Adelaide's has a few extra questions.  As she gets older and more articulate, I find it's fun to ask more thought-provoking questions.  I'll probably nix the basic stats on hers altogether next year.

Oh yeah, and don't freak out: today is not actually Father's Day.  Because our children will be with their grandparents over Father's Day, we're celebrating today.  You didn't miss it!  Yet!

Note:  Adelaide's answers are in pink, Atticus's are in green, and Caedmon's are in blue.

All About My Daddy

By Adelaide Crisler, Age 7

My Daddy’s name is Derek.

He is 6 feet 5 inches tall.

He weighs 100 pounds.

His hair color is blonde.

His favorite tv show is NFL football.

He likes to go to The Bubble.

His favorite food is crackers with ham and cheese.

His favorite drink is iced tea.

For fun my Daddy likes to play golf and football.

I love it when Daddy goes on Daddy-Daughter dates with me.

My favorite thing about my Daddy is that he takes me on Daddy-Daughter dates.

One funny thing about my Daddy is he’s stubborn.

If I could give my Daddy anything in the world, it would be a real live Garfield.

---------------------------------------

All About My Daddy

By Atticus Crisler, Age 4

My Daddy’s name is Derek.

He is 40 miles tall.

He weighs 50 pounds.

His hair color is brown.

His favorite tv show is football.

He likes to go on dates with Mommy.

His favorite food is chocolate cake.

His favorite drink is pop.

For fun my Daddy eats numbers.

I love it when Daddy plays with the train set with me.

My favorite thing about my Daddy is playing every sport with him, including basketball.

-----------------------------------

All About My Daddy

By Caedmon Crisler, Age 2

My Daddy’s name is Crisler.

He is as tall as me.

He weighs 3 pounds.

His hair color is black.

His favorite tv show is golf and baseball and football and golf.

He likes to go to church and tractor riding with just me.

His favorite food is Daddy Wraps.

His favorite drink is water and milk.

For fun my Daddy likes to play soccer ball and golf.

I love it when Daddy putts with me.  And I have two putters.

My favorite thing about my Daddy is kisses and hugses!