Help Wanted, Immediate Opening

Seeking an Idea Executer. Candidate should be able to plan, shop for and implement ideas that I come up with, or that I steal from others via pinterest. Candidate will need to be an experienced fundraiser, as no ideas currently have funding. Candidates should be able to draw, use power tools, and have the ability to see what I'm envisioning in my mind. Candidates should be proficient in Sharpie, Xacto, Photoshop, Sewing Machine, and Piping Bags.

Job includes lots of fun parties, just-because art projects, trips to Home Depot, Target, Michaels and the Dollar Store.

The position is currently being filled by my husband, but his job satisfaction is very low and it is becoming harder to motivate him to fulfill his responsibilities.

Compensation includes: eating whatever I envision you to bake, which will likely include a lot of food coloring, so applicants with chemical sensitivities need not apply.

Mama Miti turned beautiful Wall Art

We bought a piano on Craigslist. Then we decided to finally officially admit that our dining room has absolutely nothing to do with dining, so we've made it the piano/play room. So, we needed to artwork. Actually, we've needed new artwork in there for over a year now, but now that we spend time in there, it felt more important.

What to do, what to do?

A while back, I'd picked up the picture book, Mama Miti at the library. I fell in love with it - it's a beautiful story with the most beautiful illustrations reflecting the beauty of East Africa. The story encapsulated a lot of things I think are beautiful - mothers and children, the wisdom of the elderly, women helping women, resourcing people who need it, and creative problem solving.

Since I can't describe the book without saying beautiful multiple times in one paragraph, I obviously wanted to cut it to pieces and hang it on my wall. But, it was a library book. So I bought my own and cut it up.

I also bought 6 hideous pieces of art from the thrift store and spent a couple of days, cleaning, disassembling, painting frames, recovering the old artwork with burlap, taping a haphazard chevron pattern on the burlap, painting the burlap, ripping tape off, and reassembling.

And hanging.

I love it. Simon told me he doesn't, but we don't have the same taste in art.

By the way, Mama Miti is written by Donna Jo Napoli, and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. You can buy the entire book of "artwork" for $11.

See other creative ideas here:

Fascinating

I don't know a thing about the Royals. I was like 3 when Diana got married and (I'm about to make some blasphemous statements here) I never saw what all the fuss was about. Where others saw beauty and style, I only saw feathered hair. Even the funeral barely registered with me. Also (I'm sorry if this offends you even more), I kind of have a thing against England.* Mostly because of colonization, especially as it pertains to India, but I'm sure the people of Trinidad and Tobago and British Guiana might have something to say too.

Anyway. Despite that, there was a wedding! (What, you didn't know?) For months, the news coverage proved to be extremely annoying what with all the obsessive hoopla cutting into my normal Good Morning America watching. But then, when it was actually the week of the wedding, I was hooked. A prince getting married! To a "commoner" (blech - who says that? The English)! A princess-to-be (actually duchess to be, but that doesn't sound as cool)! What a brilliant excuse for a party, even at 5:30 in the morning!

I found a few friends to join me in my excitement and I began planning. Obviously, we needed tea and scones. Megan brought crumpets. I bought lemon curd for the scones because that sounded fussy and British. I downloaded and used these adorable decorations.

Only one thing left. Fascinators.

The truth is that I got hooked on the wedding not because I love Royalty but because I'm obsessed with Kate. Which is probably what happened 30 years ago for women around the world with Diana. I didn't get the Di thing, but Kate? With her tiny little hats and her perfect outfits and that expression on her face that says, "I don't need to be princess but I'm not afraid of it either"? She's just precious.

So, my wedding-watching friends and I needed fascinators.

Aren't they cute? Don't you want to make them for your next tea party? Here's what I did.

First: Go to the Dollar Store and buy anything sparkly, flowery or feathery. Plus, buy circle-shaped craft foam. Then go to Wal-Mart and buy a small length of netting, a feather duster, and a few bags of party-favor sparkly rings, and some alligator hair clips.

Second: Cut a slit in your foam circle to the middle and overlap the edges to form a shallow cone. Hot glue it in place. Realize you're going to be working with plastic, netting, foam and everything is going to melt easily so be careful.

Third: Start ripping feathers out of your feather duster and glue them to your hat. Hot glue and feathers don't work well together, but you can figure it out. Dismantle flower stems and start adding flowers to cover up the ends of the feathers. Cut apart your plastic jewels and glue those on too.

Fourth: Figure out how you want the fascinator to sit on your head, and glue the clip and the netting on accordingly. Gluing netting to foam is tricky. I finally figured out to put the glue on the foam, let it cool a bit and then bunch the netting into it.

There you go! Granted, the cheapness of the supplies used means you're not going to actually wear this to a wedding, but these would be so fun for your next girly party - for you or the little princess in your life.

Talya snuck out of bed at 6 am yesterday crying, "I want to go to the party," so I let her stay up with us. She put her fascinator on and watched the princess get married and the little girl giggle made the whole 5:30 am thing completely worth it.

(PS, my eyes here are a little Ramona-ish, no?)

*See the comments for a little discussion on this. I have a "thing against" a lot of things. I'm working on that - really, I am.

Linking up here:

It seems like it's time for a new post...

So, what can I write about? We had Easter. I'm going to be honest. By the time I flopped into my seat at church and flipped through the bulletin, confirming that there was not a single Easter Hymn for me to mutilate at the top of my lungs, my disappointments with the morning had piled up.

Shall I catalog those for you? Hmmm, yes of course. That's why you're here, right?
I stayed up late surrounded by annoying and bad-for-the-environment (yet, completely necessary, duh) Easter grass and plastic eggs to put together the baskets. I promised myself that I'd get up before the kids to sneak the dyed eggs in so they could experience the "magic" of colorful eggs on a nest of plastic grass, surrounded by plastic toys, in a plastic basket. The problem is that I do NOT get up before my kids for any reason other than catching a plane to Hawaii. That philosophy makes me late for most things in life.

Charlie woke up at 6 crying, which he does from time to time, but always settles back in to sleep for another hour or two. This time was different - he was screaming "Mama! Dada!" and he sounded distressed. I gave the manipulatively moaned "Should I go check on him?" to Ben who responded appropriately with a, "No, I'll do it." I reflected on how thankful I am for that charming hunk and then realized with despair that if I wanted to get up before the kids, this was my opportunity. So, I did. Then I went back to bed, too exhausted from my journey to the kitchen to get up when the kids did so I missed the magic of them witnessing my Easter baskets.

In fact, by the time I officially gave them their baskets, this is what Talya looked like:

Here's me being honest: For me, the most important part of celebrating Easter is getting your whole family to look cute and then taking a great picture. Sounds simple, but that's a pretty high expectation with a pretty low chance of meeting it. We got the looking cute part down, but by the time we shuffled into church (*Oh wait, there are no blocks of ten seats available on Easter Sunday for a family who arrives 5 minutes late? You've got to be kidding me!*), I realized we had no family picture.

Ben, who is the hero of this post, was struck with an idea. When they announced it was time to dismiss the kids for children's church, he whispered grab your camera and we took a quick detour outside to get our picture while all the children of responsible parents traipsed off to learn about Jesus. We got a few pictures that aren't horrible, although Talya kept putting her hand up my dress.

Then we ran home to force the tired and hungry children to have fun hunting for eggs in the wet grass while I cooked lunch. There were major flaws in the plan that mostly related to expecting them to eat a nice dinner at the kids' table hopped up on sugar during nap time. We shuttled them to bed as soon as we could, but the sugar rush kept them up for most of the afternoon.

So, here's what I learned this Easter:

• It's important to go to the traditional service even though it's earlier if you want to sing Up from the Grave He arose, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, or any other Easter staple. (The music in our service was beautiful, but my preference is clear.)
• The early service is also important if you want the kids to eat lunch at lunch time, not when they should be asleep.
• The Easter Bunny is an evil spirit who lives in small pieces of candy and wakes your kids up from much-needed naps.
• Holidays are way too important to me.
• Cute outfits are way too important to me. Actually, look at these pictures - they are not too important to me - they are well worth the effort. I swear.
• Next year, I need to buy an extra bag of robin's eggs, because I'm already almost done with this one and I'm not sick of them yet.
• This cake is the best ever. I finished it and want to go make another one.

Well that was an honestly shallow post that I fear has you thinking I'm a shallow person with no spiritual depth. That's not true, but it would be a lie to say that my Easter holiday was spent in spiritual reflection, and not plastic, brisket, figuring out the math on a box of Hungry Jack potato flakes, getting to church on time, and then collapsing in a heap of exhaustion to watch the Last Cake Standing.

But a few days ago, before the hoopla, we did the Resurrection Eggs with the kids. (Cute - check them out if you want.) We opened the egg that held the nails in it and talked about what Jesus went through for us, and Simon said this: "Mom, did you know that the nails didn't hold Jesus on the cross? Love held Jesus on the cross."

I promise you that when a five-year-old says it, it's way more moving than reading it on a facebook status.

So, I'll end my long and shallow post with this from the Jesus Storybook Bible:

They nailed Jesus to the cross.

"Father, forgive them," Jesus gasped. "They don't understand what they're doing."

"You say you've come to rescue to rescue us!" people shouted. "But you can't even rescue yourself!"

But they were wrong. Jesus could have rescued himself. A legion of angels would have flown to his side - if he'd called.

"If you were really the Son of God, you could just climb down off that cross!" they said.

And of course they were right. Jesus could have just climbed down. Actually, he could have just said a word and made it all stop. Like when he healed that little girl. And stilled the storm. And fed 5,000 people.

But Jesus stayed.

You see, they didn't understand. It wasn't the nails that kept Jesus there. It was love.

Boundaries for Dummies?

So if you're a Christian or been in churchy environments, or even if you watch Dr. Phil, or are just an American living in the 21st century, you've probably heard the term "boundaries" thrown around a lot. There's a book on it, which, to be honest, I haven't read. I hear it's really good, but I'm a little bit of a snobbish pig about reading books that "everyone else" is reading. Which makes me feel like I'm my own person (see? boundaries!) but probably just means I miss out on some good ideas.

Anyways, my close friends can tell you that I always roll my eyes (literally or mentally) when someone mentions boundaries, because I think that in some cases - not all - boundaries have become the "Christian" excuse for selfishness. Here's where you remind me that I haven't read the book so shuttheheckup. I KNOW, BUT... I'm basing my mental eye-rolls on how I've seen boundaries play out, not on what they are supposed to be. So humor me for a sec, okay?

It's become kind of a joke between me and a couple of friends. It's ironic, don't you see? I'm putting up a boundary around Boundaries. Ha ha, I'm hilarious.

Well, now that I'm parenting a child who is old enough for friendships that don't include me, maybe it would be a good time for a refresher course on healthy relationships. He had mentioned that he had a friend at school (let's call him Bob) who always wants to sit by him. We talked about how he doesn't HAVE to sit by Bob all the time, and he can have friendships with other kids too; he just has to be kind and nice to Bob.

Now if that's not great boundary advice, I don't know what is. But, then again, I haven't read the book.

Today Simon said, "Mom, Bob is my best friend."

Well, that's weird, I thought. I said, "Oh really? Why?" Simon said, "Well, that's what Bob said."

Hmmm...

Then he said, "Bob always sits by me. But sometimes he lets me sit by other people. He likes to sit across from me too, so he can see me."

Well, that's just creepy.

Cue the conversation about what it means to be a good friend, and how a good friend doesn't make you do anything you don't want to do. I also encouraged him to continue to be friends with Bob and always be kind to him even if he doesn't want to sit by him (or across from him) sometimes.

(This on a day where I managed to sneak the correct names for pee-pees and hoo-hahs into conversation just so I can not screw up my kids in that department. I also decided it's time for all children to always have underpants on all the time.)

I'm rocking this parenting gig today.

Things I Learned on Vacation

1) Ten year celebrations are way better than honeymoons. Probably because we've known each other for a lot longer, feel a lot more comfortable sharing the bathroom, and can appreciate the fact that real life is not about the stress of assembling wedding invitations, and therefore can benefit from a holiday.

2) My children can use a vacation from me once in a while. Especially if it's with their grandparents. Especially because their grandparents will do ridiculous things like take them to fly kites even when it's 40 degrees outside.

3) When Ben gets home from a trip and he's jet lagged and exhausted, it's real. He's not being a baby. (I'm not sure that this realization will result in my actually being nicer to him when he can't get out of bed in the morning, but one can hope.)

4) Spray tans are not worth the money when it will only take 5.5 minutes to turn your skin bright red.

5) Of all of the people on the beach, only about 2 percent of them are hot enough to make you feel awkward about your baby jiggle. About 80 percent of them are large enough to make you feel pretty darn good about it.

6) Reading is awesome and is best done when you don't have to cook a single meal.

7) The ocean is huge and scary, and has actual animals swimming around in it, which is also scary, but very cool.

8) I'm pretty convinced that there is something sketchy about Hawaii's statehood that smacks of American Imperialism. I did a little research on that, thank you wikipedia, and there seem to be at least a few native Hawaiians who would agree. (Add Hawaiian vacation to my list of fun things like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July that I can't experience without guilt.)

9) The Big Island of Hawaii might be the most amazing place on the whole earth. I mean, seriously. God put beaches, a rain forest, black sand, pretty flowers, and perfect weather on a massive volcano that still spits lava into the ocean every once in a while.

10) Peanut butter and Cocoa Krispie sandwiches make a delicious breakfast.

11) Just because pineapples grow in Hawaii doesn't mean that you'll automatically get to eat them while you're there. For instance, you might go for an entire week and not get a single pineapple because you eat Cocoa Krispie sandwiches for breakfast instead of hotel buffet food. If that happens, you might need to order a pool-side mai tai just because they'll stick a pineapple spear in it. Even if that mai tai costs more than lunch. Because, with a pineapple in it, it practically is lunch. Right?

12) My husband? Is the best. And when the kids grow up and move out, we'll still have a lot of fun together.

13) Speaking of growing up, my kids are absolutely not allowed to grow up. Because then we have to deal with teenage girls in bikinis. And, whether we're talking about my sons or my daughter, I'm going to have a problem with teenage girls in bikinis.

sprayed

im sitting in the airport en route to a magnificent anniversary/birthday vacation with my man. The vacation that I've been working out for, turning down (some) sweets for, and shopping for like I'm the newest cast member of Real Housewives of Southern Ohio. I'm manied, pedied, waxed, toned, and styled for an entire week without a sippy cup or diaper. And one more thing: I'm sprayed.

I ran off last night to get a spray tan. My shockingly pale rationale went something like this:I might be more disciplined with the sunscreen if I'm already a little darker shade of white. Being a google-research junkie and a spray-tan (or any kind of tan) novice, I watched a video on the Internet about what to expect.

I learned that I need to be clean, which is a feat in itself. I learned that when I got there I should rub the all-important barrier cream everywhere, especially my hands and feet. I learned that they'd give me a hair net, nostril filters (so I wouldn't suffocate) and eye wear (so I wouldn't go blind).

So off I went, very nervous that I'd end up either 1) orange 2) streaky 3) suffocated 4) blind or 5) on a creepy Internet video.

The leathery tan lady took me through a maze of shady rooms (the kind that look apt for creepy Internet videos) to the spray tan booth. She told me what to do but once I realized there was no nostril filters or eyewear, I stopped being able to pay attention. I scanned the ceiling for cameras, stripped down, covered my hair and hopped into the phone booth.

With visions of Ross Gellar's disasterous spray tan in my mind, I pushed the button. And then I realized I'd forgotten the lotion! I panicked. I almost bailed. I felt claustrophobic. I started to shake, but I'd already paid, and if I didn't close my eyes and hold my breath, I was likely to drown in brown spray paint.

Unlike Ross, I remembered to turn. But I was freaking out about my hands, my feet, and being butt naked in a small place while I suffered some major anxiety.

I hopped out of the booth, scrubbed the drips off me and ran to the bathroom to was my hands and feet. I was still shaking most of the way home.

But, I'm not orange. My hands and feet are ok, and I can see. I guess it wasn't so bad. Mondays are only $10, maybe I'll be back to maintain my fake glow.