Holiday Giveaway

I just ran across a very creative site for custom-created jewelry by Lisa Leonard. It's so simple and elegant. Usually, I'm not a girl who desires great gobs of bling, but one look at her site and I'm hooked!

Check out her designs and a giveaway at: Simple Mom's Holiday Giveaway

Just deal with it already

Do you have junk drawer in your house? Come on, admit it. You're among friends here. Maybe you have one. Or maybe you have one for each room. Or maybe you're a total clutter freak and you have an entire junk room?

Introduce Exhibit A: My throw-in room. Or maybe it's just a throw-up room. Whatever.

It's been getting from bad to worse for months years. When you homeschool, you tend to accumulate a lot of STUFF. Board games at garage sales beckon. The friends of the library book sales become your personal fave time of year. A copy of the classics at 10cents each? I'm so all over that. Oh...yeah, right, get home and find 2 copies already on the shelves. ooops.

Plus all the great 'finds' at used curriculum sales, shoe boxes saved for the next impromptu history diorama, stacks of paper in every imaginable color, drawers of yarn saved for the craft projects that go along with all the fun stuff and you see my problem. So many great resources, and a room that I can't even walk into anymore.

Every time I walk past the resource, schooljunk room, it screams at me to do something already. I get screamed at a lot since it's across the hall from my bathroom. I used to close the door. It's so bad now that I have to put my fingers in my ears and hum the theme from Mission: Impossible to ignore its whines to clean it up.

I'm good at ignoring whines. I have two little girls. Enough said.

So, today, my jury servitude finished. Yay! But the girls bailed on me about 20 minutes after I left the house (Daddy, can we go to grandma's house?), so I returned to no kids and the screaming room.

Today, I will conquer it. I feel the energy. I (along with my 11 jury members) heard the evidence, weighed it and rendered a verdict. How hard can sorting through my (never-used) scrapbooking supplies be compared to that?

Will keep you posted. Although the jury's still out on this one.

Out of the mouthes of babes

Conversation in the mini-van last night:

LittlestSquirrel (LS): I want to eat at the fish restaurant tonight.
Mommy: Nope, Daddy doesn't want to eat there, so we're bringing him home subs.
BigSquirrel (BS): Daddy hates fish and I hate pork.
LS: What's pork?
BS: Pig.
LS: I hate pig too.
BS: No, you eat it all the time. Bacon, you know.
LS: Oh.
BS: And you eat cow too.
LS: WHAAAAAAT?
BS: Oh yeah, burgers and steaks are made of cows.
LS: (looking in horror at snack in hand) So, what are pretzels made of? Turkey?

Jury Duty

So, somehow I managed NOT get out of jury duty this week. Seems so easy, no? Answer a few questions and poof, be excused. Apparently not so easy. Seems as if one potential juror's "My mother is the sheriff in this county" carries more weight than my "I have a friend whose husband is in law enforcement". Who knew it had to be a blood relative to make the attorney's wince?

Eh, sonny...what's that you say?

Can you hear this? http://trainhorns.net/sound/

I can, although I'm (ahem) a wee bit older than 25. Ok, more than a wee bit since I'm closer to 40 than 25. Can you hear it? And, if you would...are you closer to 25 or 40?

Being in the moment

You know how every self-help parenting guru says "Just be in the moment" and "Ignore the dishes, they're only young once". Well, I think I may have taken that too far.

In this moment, I can't see my hallway. It's covered in dirty clothes. I finally managed to clear out the dishes from the sink, but I suspect that some dish dirtying elf is going to fill it right back up again. I won't post a photo. It would just be too disgusting to look at and then you'd have to go wash your eyeballs out.

I was looking around my house and fantasizing about having the power to bend space/time, like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes. We're way behind the current season, but thanks to Netflix Streaming, I haven't been left completely in the dust and am half-way (or so) through Season One.

Can you picture me, all squinchy faced like Hiro? Ok, so you'll have to use your imagination. I was picturing it today, standing there facing my loads of laundry. I did the face squinch, willing the world to STOP, freeze frame, do-over! Or at least just keep everyone still for 30 minutes, so I can catch up! It's like a temporary cyrogenic chamber of goodness that you can just keep dipping into again and again. Like the freeze time cookie jar :)

What would you do with Hiro's "freeze time" powers?

Mayday, Mayday...we've landed in Suburbia

Isn't it weird when you walk out your front door and see this?



Grabbed the camera, told the kids to grab whatever shoes and jackets they could find and we ran down to the park to investigate further. Did a hot air balloon really hit the ground in my neighborhood?

Nah. Turns out someone was having a Wizard of Oz Birthday party, complete with costumes and rides in a tethered balloon for all the birthday guests.



My kids stood there, mouths open as they watched it fill up with guests and go up and down. The grandpa of the birthday girl was such a kind soul. He saw my kids looked bug eyed at the balloon and asked if we'd like a ride up after the birthday guests had a chance. Would we?! OMG, yes, thank you, we most definitely would!

So, we went up. The littlest squirrel huddled on the floor of the basket, peering out the port hole at the bottom. The big squirrel clutched the side of the basket and peered over. I, camera in hand, madly shot the burner



the playground,



and the inside of the balloon.