The Object of Reed's Affection

Reed has a raging crush. He told me a couple of days ago: "Mama, when I'm a man, I will marry a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman--not an old lady. And she will have bright hair, not brown hair. And she will wear a bowtie. In her hair."

His teacher told me two days ago that he informed her: "I'm going to marry Kaylee when I'm a man." And he talks about Kaylee a lot. And he has swim lessons with her. And today the teachers told me that he gets all googly-eyed when he sees Kaylee, and today when I walked in to pick up Reed, he was sitting next to her at the snack table, where they were sweetly chatting. So here's Kaylee. :) Wait....is that a "bowtie" I spy in her hair?

Whaddya know?

I'm making my way through the laundry. I actually do have pictures of my house all clean from another time, but not the master bedroom. Maybe I'll post those. I'm done pressuring myself about getting the home clean in one fell swoop. It'll happen. Some time. I'm chipping away at it, little by little.

In the meantime, I've discovered that there are two things I'm actually okay at--and these are two things I thought I should just stop attempting! First: I thought I had the Black Thumb of Death. Turns out, I can grow plants in tiny pots on my windowsill. So we'll say that maybe I have a pale green thumb. :) Second: I thought I was horrible at crafts. But now I think that I do fine if the craft is something I'm excited about. Read further for evidence:

Remember Reed's ill-fated clementine seed? Well, my mom sent some parsley seeds after reading that post. So I went and got a couple of other pots, as well as mint seeds and lavender seeds. We planted them in the small pots and put them in the windowsill, and every day, Reed and I water them and talk sweetly to them. (Reed: "You can do it, Parsley! Don't be shy! Come out to see your friends!") The parsley has four sprouts, the mint has nothing, and the lavender is like a little field in the pot. I think it may be Reed's soft touch that's making these plants grow! It makes it easier for me to endure the winter when I have a tiny bit of un-frozen green in my windowsill. When I saw what Marie did to attractively store her earrings, I thought it was really creative and cute, and wished that I had more dangly-ish earrings to store that way. I left it at that. But that was before the boys discovered the incredible fun of my jewelry box on the dresser. And before Carlisle decided that a necklace would make a very good cat toy. Eventually, after picking up beads from the carpet two many times, and worrying that Savvy would eat them, I decided I needed some way to store my necklaces up and away from the boys. I googled something like "necklace storage", and was not really impressed by what I saw. So, along the lines of what Marie made, I started to think about how I could do something myself. Here's what I came up with:If you were to use a frame you have around the house, this project is $4. I bought my frame because I liked having one that matches our bedroom furniture so well. My cut edge looks a little rough on the right, doesn't it? Oh, well! It looks great hanging up!! Anyway, I bought a placemat that was on clearance, cut it to fit right inside the 11x14 frame, sewed the buttons on and glued the whole thing to the inside of the frame--to the glass. I think the only thing I would change (and only if I were to do the whole thing over) would be to use bigger buttons. (The necklaces hang around the buttons, and some necklaces are thicker and would do better with more edge.) I bought the buttons for 88 cents (for a pack of 200), and the placemat was $3.00. I'm sure any fabric would work, although I liked that the placemat was thick. (That makes it fit in the frame more snugly). I imagine if you were to use regular fabric, you might want to glue it to foam board or cardboard after you'd sewn on the buttons. Oh, and I chose buttons because I thought they'd be more aesthetically pleasing than hooks, and I didn't know how well the hooks would stay in, if I had used cardboard or foam. So....ta-da! :)

Update: Mess and more mess

Well, the spring cleaning started off with a bang....and then 5.5 hours later, with a tired back, three cleaned out closets and half a trash can of broken toys from the boys' room, I decided to rest for the day. I still have the master closet to finish, which is where Phill found me buried yesterday. (Truthfully, I wasn't buried...but when he did find me, he said cheerily, "You found the floor!") As far as cleanliness itself, the house is pretty awful right now. And I'm not exaggerating. To prove my point, I'm going to post a picture of what it looks like at this moment. And then at the end of the day, I will post some more. Warning: These are very real pictures. This is my real house, the one you don't see when I have a day's warning before you come over. And this is the thing that happens when so many things don't have a designated place....which is why I'm in deep organizational mode right now. Somehow, this mess you're about to see only takes about ten minutes to create when you have three sets of little hands more than willing to "help"....onward I move into cleaner territories. Meanwhile, here's the current wilderness:Sorry the pictures are dark. I think subconsciously my right finger refused to move the dial to the left and allow for more light. Why make it easier to see my mess? :)

Spring cleaning (in 30-degree weather)

I've been struck today by an awesome thing--the mood to spring-clean. Out will go everything that isn't needed, whole, or easy enough to put in our amount of space, and by the end of the day, we will have a more organized, clean, and peaceful space. Maybe I should do before-and-after photos. I love throwing things away. This is going to be a fun day. :)

Waking up, pretend guitars, holes in the knees and bags on sale

So the waking-up-at-7:30 thing is actually going pretty well! The first two days I did it quite well, but yesterday, Phill didn't go in to work (because of the short-and-not-too-sweet snow storm), so I slept 'til 9:00. And this morning, I had a really hard time dragging myself out of bed, even though I did wake up at 7:30 and stay awake! (I couldn't put down Gone With the Wind last night....) So it's going really well, for the most part. I'm proud of myself, because this is really difficult for me! Thanks for all the supportive comments.

We bought Rock Band. I'll have to post pictures later. Reed is crazy about it, and it reinforces his recent desire to have a "homawk". We'll probably give him a homemade one today. He can't exactly play for real yet, so we just let him pretend, and it did come with a few other games, one of which he loves and can play pretty well. Phill and I are like little kids and play Rock Band once the kids are in bed each night. I'm pretty good at drums and miserable at guitar, and Phill's great at guitar and close-to-hopeless at drums. :)

On another note, just because I'm rambling...Reed PLOWS through the knees of his pants in no time at all! I got him some pants in December that were nice quality (I thought?) and they already have holes in the knees. And it doesn't help that he is quite tall but also quite skinny--I have to find pants that are Slim or have adjustable waistbands. Anyway, it's just a pain. I don't mind patching his pants, but it would be nice if he had a pair that didn't look so worn, you know?
Who knew jeans shopping for a five-year-old could be as exasperating as it is for me?

Lastly: I was lucky to hit the Down East Outfitters outlet here and find several things for five dollars and under. Yay for sales! :) I found a bag (pics later) that's J. Crew, which was originally $60.00 (Are you KIDDING me?!), marked down at this outlet for $14.99 (better, but still more than I like...), then with an orange label saying $11.49 (Nice, but no cigar for frugal-but-mostly-stubbornly-cheap me), and then because it was an orange label, it was 50% off of THAT price--$5.74 (Aaahhh...there's the price I was looking for!!). So I got a bag for less than a tenth of its original price. Thank you for the applause. :)

I'm committing....

I've had it with my laziness! I am going to get out of bed at 7:30 Monday through Friday. And I'm posting it here because I think it makes me feel a little more accountable, a little more committed.

There. I said it. Now I really have to do it. And now, somehow, I want to go take a nap in preparation for tomorrow morning.

I can do this! This will be good for me!

Gulp....what have I done?

:)

Reed Got His First Library Card Today:

I'm so stinking proud. :)

Green Reed

We were driving home from the gym and almost to our street when Reed said in a panic, "Mom! Stop! Turn around and go back! There was a plate in the dish--a bush in the plate--dishes--a plate in the bush! And it was plastic!" Now, while I happen to think (like my mom so wonderfully put it) that Al Gore is a real-life Gilderoy Lockhart, and global warming is not the looming catastrophe it is made to be (GASP!! Did I really just say something so controversial? Dear me!), I do happen to love this planet we live on, and Reed's panicky concern was really sweet, and definitely to be commended. So I turned around and let Reed out to get the plastic plate out of the bush, and promptly disposed of it when we got home. :) Every day my children have some way of encouraging me to try a little harder, be a little better, grow a little more. It's (sometimes) painful and (most often) sweet.

Rae by Google Images

Got this from Lara's blog and had to try it!! (You don't mind, do you, Lara?) :)

You have to answer the questions with a Google image search. No using your own pictures.

1. A place you would like to travel: (Sitka, Alaska)

2. Favorite food

3. Favorite dessert

4. Your name:

5. Favorite animal

6. Your pet's name: (minus the Belinda)

7. Favorite singer(s): (Just one of many)

8. Town you live in

9. Current job

10. Favorite author

11. Favorite color

12. A bad habit

13. Favorite objects

14. Favorite song: (Just one of MANY)

Another Reed quotable

"I found a monster under my bed, and I took it to school with me. The other kids said 'Wow! You brought a monster to school!' The teacher said 'Get that thing out of here!' I said 'Stop saying get that thing out of here!' The monster begin'd to cry. But I gave it loves and it was okay."

Very important! :)

Just a few words:
Ben & Jerry's Creme Brulee Ice Cream

Definitely worth posting

Our bedroom and bathroom are immaculate (and the furniture all smells lovely like orange oil furniture polish), the carpets are all vacuumed, the countertops are clean and clear and the table is clean and clear, Savvy's room is clean, the boys' room is clean, their bathroom is usable (even if a stranger stopped in to use it), and while the laundry is far from done, it is not spread across all corners of the house. It is at least sorted into clean and dirty and put in spots where we won't walk on it or drown in it! And the livingroom is clean--no toys on the floor, no un-livingroom-ish things lying around. And oh yeah, the kids are happy.

Aaahhh.....feeling accomplished. Definitely worth blogging about, as I'm sure this moment is fleeting. But still--yay!