Month: April 2006
Playing truant
Kiki was highly amenable to the substitution of a Mother/Daughter date for the Mother’s Day luncheon. So today we went to see the movie Aquamarine together. Aquamarine is the perfect pre-teen girl movie. Kiki loved it. I found it light and pleasant. Then Kiki and I went out to eat at The Pizza Factory. That was probably a mistake for our budget, but Kiki was delighted to eat out with her mom and I was delighted to eat yummy food that I hadn’t had to prepare. In all it was a very pleasant bonding time with Kiki and a wonderful break from responsibility for me.
But I have to confess that the best part was coming home. Gleek and Patches were waiting on the front steps to greet us. Howard was obviously exhausted, frustrated that he hadn’t gotten more Schlock work done, in pain from his sore neck, and worn out from doing all the dishes I’d left behind. He had every right to be a buzzkill because I’d been gone almost twice as long as we had discussed and the kitchen was a horrible wreck when I left. BUT Howard did not kill my buzz. He did not complain even once. I went out for hours and came back to well tended children and a house that was cleaner than when I left. That was the best part of all.
Schedule Conflicts
Note to future self: May is not a good month to be releasing a book.
May is full of school activities and end of year concerts and other such kid stuff. This time it was just very important to get the book available asap, but for future books, I’ll aim to have the heavy duty mailing and party planning land in a less busy month.
Kiki’s Activity Day Girl’s group is having a mother’s day luncheon on the day we have scheduled for mailing. Gleek’s dance class is having her recital on the Friday that I’ll be at Conduit with Howard and Gleek will be staying at my brother’s house. Fortunately Gleek is so excited about the visit to my brother’s house that she doesn’t mind missing her recital. She has plans to perform her dance for her cousins. The mother’s day luncheon is trickier. Historically Kiki’s events have been most trampled upon by Novell and cartooning business concerns. I’ll probably have to take a break from frantic mail preparation and go to this luncheon. I’m worried about it though because I’m the one who really needs to be there to explain how the mailing works. Perhaps I can talk Kiki into having a different and special mommy/daughter date on a different day.
I really hope that the schools get their End Of Year calendars put out soon because I’m sure there are other conflicts that I’ll need to resolve.
Cell Phone Shopping
I have once again entered the ranks of cell phone ownership. When Howard quit Novell our family went from two phones to one, in an effort to cut expenses. Now with me much more heavily involved in business and both Howard and I running around much more, a second cell phone is again merited. Especially since it is tax deductable as a business expense.
The shopping itself was pretty painless. I knew I wanted a flip phone, but I wanted the cheapest one available. I also knew we wanted the cheapest plan available.
Note to anyone who intends to shop for a cell phone: they’ll shove a brochure at you, but the cheapest plan on the brochure is almost certainly not the cheapest plan available. I made a protesting noise about the price and suddenly the salesman was drawing on my brochure with a lower price. The same thing happened when the subject of accessories came up. I think I’m supposed to feel like the salesman was super nice and that I got a really good deal. Instead I’m left feeling like I might have gotten a better deal if only I’d known the magic haggling words to use.
Oh well, I have my cell phone now. I just wish it had ringtones that weren’t annoying. (Yes I know I can buy ringtones, but I’ve already spent too much money today.)
Fairy House Pictures
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Gleek’s Fairy House This is the fairy house I created for Gleek. The fence provided a useful back wall and a sturdy support. The side walls are sticks partly buried and shored up with rocks, then woven with honeysuckle vines. The carpeted interior is made of “lambs ear” leaves which grow as weeds in our yard. I’m told that the lone stick across the opening is a door and the grass on the inside was part of a nest. But it looks as though somone has stolen most of the nest. |
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Kiki’s Fairy House Kiki’s Fairy House is constructed the same as Gleeks, but the addition of a peaked roof was a bit of a challenge. This house used to feature a “For Sale” sign, but it has disappeared. Perhaps the new tenants have already moved in. |
Fairy House Pictures
I’ve had several requests for pictures of the fairy houses, so I opened up a flickr account to display them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81703963@N00/
I’ve no idea how often I’ll be posting pictures. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to put pictures in LJ rather than just pointing at them.
Joe’s Crab Shack
We do not take our kids to restaurants very often. In part this is because restaurants are expensive, but mostly it is because I want to be able to relax and enjoy restaurant meals. I don’t want to be heavily engaged in child management. However when a friend offers to take the whole family to Joe’s Crab Shack, I’m not going to say no. That’s what happend yesterday afternoon.
The kids were very excited by the prospect of eating out. Kiki and Link were particularly excited about the choice of venue because they’ve eaten there before. Gleek and Patches were excited because they absorbed the ambient excitement from the air. It was a bit chaotic getting them to put on shoes and into the car. Once they were all strapped into their seats, and therefore immobile, I requested them all to look at me. I informed them that they needed to behave themselves in the restaurant. The phrase “behave yourself” is a bit ambiguous for Gleek and Patches, so I then took a few minutes to describe the behavior I wanted to see. Mostly I put emphasis on sitting still because of previous experience with tag games through restaurant spaces.
Joe’s Crab Shack is one of those places that hangs toys and things all over the walls and ceilings. This was very good for the kids because they had lots of stuff to look at and think about. Gleek in particular was entranced by being in a restaurant. She was so entranced by every step that I began to feel a little guilty for depriving her of this mind opening experience earlier. Patches walked into the restaurant and immediately wanted to be picked up. He was scared of the “bugs” on the walls. The “bugs” were plastic crabs and lobsters. We were seated quickly and the kids were each handed a kid’s menu with coloring pages. Kiki shoved her kid’s menu out of the way and grabbed my menu instead. Kiki loves crab and there was no way she’d be ordering any kiddie meal. The other three kids were happy to order from the pictures. In fact they felt cool and grown up to be ordering their own food and drinks. Patches went for the popcorn shrimp, probably because it had the word “popcorn” in the name. Gleek went for a chicken shrimp combo. Link decided on pizza.
The kids were marvelously good. Gleek and Patches both stayed in their seats. They ate their dinners and everyone happily shared food samples with others. Patches even condescended to try eating a bite one of the “bugs” from his daddy’s plate. Gleek sampled the crab too. She informed us that she didn’t like it now, but it was okay because she would like it when she is a mom. It was a wonderful experience for us all. We decided to skip restaurant dessert because Gleek and Patches were getting antsy. I wanted to leave while we were all still enjoying the experience.
Fun and good food were had by all, and many thanks go out to the Strohls for sponsoring the event.
Thrift Shop Bonanza
When the weather is nice we walk to church. I like walking with my children in their Sunday best and looking at flowers or just generally being outdoors. Yesterday on the walk to church I was watching Link running ahead of me and I realized that his church pants are a couple inches too short. So is his tie. And the pants have pills all over them. This realization wouldn’t be so bad, except that I’ve had the exact same realization several weeks in a row. One of my hot items for garage sales was new church clothes for Link, but I didn’t get lucky.
Today I decided to bite the bullet and go to a thrift store to see what I could find. I mentally planned to spend about $10 on pants, a tie, and maybe a shirt. I was headed to the boy’s clothes section when I noticed little signs saying “All purple tags $.99.” I started with dress pants, then I rummaged shorts, then dress shirts, then girls clothes, then coats, and mens clothes… you get the idea. Fortunately I had my “looking for” list with me, so I was able to quickly determine what sections to comb carefully and what to just skim. Items we could use that had purple tags, went into the cart until the cart was piled high and I was tired.
I went in mentally cringing at spending $10. I walked out after spending $30. But for that thirty dollars I got:
8 coats (yes coats, nice winter coats for kids to grow into)
3 sweatshirts
6 pairs of boys shorts
1 skirt
2 pairs dress pants for Link
1 tie (This is the only item that didn’t have a purple tag, but it was also the only child sized tie available)
2 boy’s dress shirts
1 turtleneck
I was thrilled with this haul and I asked the lady at the register how often they do this kind of sale. Apparently Savers does this every Monday. They have 5 tag colors and each of the colors goes on sale in rotation. This completely changes my clothes shopping strategy. Instead of driving around hitting garage sales every weekend, I need to be hitting Savers every Monday. Lot’s less gas involved, and it’s air conditioned. I’ll still hit garage sales for other things, and I won’t pass up cheap clothes if I find them, but now I know where I can find a steady supply.
Now if only I can find a set of bunk beds with the tag of the week on them. (I know, not likely, but I can dream)
On Becoming
When I was growing up there was a woman at church who always dressed beautifully. She never followed fashion trends. She wore long full skirts when short skirts were in style. She wore knee high boots when ankle boots were all the rage. And yet all of her clothes blended together into one beautiful whole. She was classy and I admired her for that. I decided I wanted to be like that. I want to be someone who always looks classy without looking trendy.
Recently I’ve come to express this with my hair. It has grown long. Right now it reaches the middle of my back, which is as long as it has ever been. I’m hoping it grows even longer. But just having really long hair isn’t enough. For me, the point of having long hair is the fun hairstyles I can do. Because of this, and because I can’t stand my hair getting in the way, I usually braid my hair and pin it up. This is easy for me to do, and probably takes less time than the blowdrying and styling that other women do, but it looks really impressive. I frequently get comments asking me if I do my hair myself. I love that, because it means I’ve succeded. Putting my hair up for the day makes me feel a connection to generations of women before me who did the same. Short hair on women has only been acceptable for about 90 years.
In short, I feel myself becoming the person I dreamed of being. That makes me glad. And maybe at church there is another young girl who will watch me and make similar decisions for herself, but express them in her own way. That would make me glad too.
Butter!
Patches is a boy with distinct tastes. One of his favorite flavors is butter. Breakfast is not complete without buttering his french toast at least twice. In fact Patches has been known to finish off a soft butter if it is left unguarded on the counter.
Today was a new venture into butter flavorings. I came into the kitchen to find Patches industriously adding butter to his ramen noodle soup.