Last week when I was going through my Easter decorations box, I had a sudden urge to host an Easter egg decorating and hunting party.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me either, but I invited seven moms and seventeen children to my home for the party.

It was SO MUCH FUN!

The party was originally supposed to outside, but the weather was cold and rainy.  Since we ended up inside, I decided to forgo the dye (DUH!) and instead the kids used markers, crayons, stickers, and stencils to decorate the eggs.  Everyone brought their own boiled eggs or plastic eggs to decorate.

The night before the party, I filled plastic eggs with a jelly beans.  While the kids decorated eggs, I hid eggs around the house for an Easter egg hunt.   I think it took about 10 minutes to hide all the eggs, two minutes for the kids to find them all, and thirty seconds for them to devour the candy.

For the kids’ lunches, I made mini pizzas out of sandwich thins, pizza sauce, and mozzarella cheese.  I made an antipasto platter (recipe from this month’s Southern Living Magazine) for the adults and served sparkling Italian Wildberry Soda (from Target).  My friends each brought an appetizer or dessert to share.

I’m always so nervous about hosting parties, I worry that nobody will show up and if they do, it will be a boring bust.   There was no reason AT ALL to worry, it truly was a great time.  As an added bonus, BOTH kids took naps after the party, they had so much fun.

Happy Easter everyone!

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Unfortunately, my house had become overrun by piles of paper.  Mail, lists, and school art projects seem to multiply like rabbits.  It had gotten so bad that I was always misplacing important things, like bills and scraps of paper with phone numbers and ideas for Pulitzer prize contending blog posts. Every week I attend a women’s group that I like to think of as free therapy.  Childcare and food included!  In my small group, we’re reading the book, Desperate Households, a book with tips for organizing your life and creating peace in your home. (Disclosure:  Affilate link, Mama needs a new toothpick!)

One of the things I’ve taken away from the book is giving each person in the family their own spot for their “stuff,” like the ever-mounting piles of paper.  Instead of making piles on my kitchen counter, I created an office space in our pantry where I organize all the paper that comes into the house everyday.  Each family member has their own basket and into the basket goes all the stuff that isn’t quite ready to be thrown away.  Voila!  Problem solved!

HA!  Not really.  Since I didn’t have piles, I’d forget all about the bills because they weren’t staring me in the face every second of the day.  EVEN WORSE, I couldn’t find the babysitter’s phone number.

So I decided that I needed a central hub for the SUPER IMPORTANT papers.  I considered a bulletin board, but decided that small, sharp objects and small, not so sharp children wouldn’t be a good mix.  On Etsy I found this darling magnet board from Paisley and Co! Isn’t that cute!!  Frankly, I almost thought it was too cute to hang in my pantry.   (Disclosure:  I’m simply mentioning a shop that I really, really, really like.  I bought this magnet board with my own money.)

Now I place all bills and important phone numbers and anything else that I, RULER AND SUPREME BEING of my home, has deemed worthy on the magnet board.   Here are a few shots of my office slash pantry combo…

Food side (below).  Pretend everything you see is organic and healthy.

The office side (below).  I am well aware that it looks messy, but I assure you that I know where everything is.  Please note our life savings in a medical beaker on the shelf below the top shelf.  Stay away thieves!

One of my most detested chores is filing bill stubs.  I wish I could figure out a better way to file these things away, other than just DOING IT ALREADY.  But that’s what I’m forcing myself to do.  Instead of letting the paid bill stubs pile up, I make myself file them away as soon as they’re paid.  It’s painful, but worth it.

A view from outside the pantry that’s making me realize that I have a little more organizing to do.  *cough*Where’d all that junk on the floor come from!*cough*  Thank goodness there’s a door.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t you just hate all the little toys that your children collect!  They are like bacteria, mulitplying and getting into every crevice of your home.

While cleaning the kids’ toy bin out the other day, I had an epiphany.  I feel guilty throwing these toys away (guilty about the landfills, not guilty about the kids losing toys).  I had the brilliant (I think) idea to separate the toys into activity bags that can be used for entertaining the kids at restaurants or church or long car rides.

Here’s what I did!

Materials: toys from fast food kid’s meals, stocking stuffer sized toys, mini books (coloring books, sticker books), flash cards, crayons, pencils, small non-perishable snacks, gallon size plastic zip close bags

I chose 5-7 things to put into each bag. I considered doing separate bags for Carson and Ella, but changed my mind when I realized that if they had their own bags, they’d just want what the other had. Potential disaster averted! I also was careful to choose quiet toys since I plan to take these bags along to church and restaurants and don’t want to get kicked out because of a battery powered, speaking monkey from Burger King.

None of these toys are prized possessions, if they get left behind…OH WELL! The kids may not play with them at home, but when they are in a SUPER SPECIAL SURPRISE bag, they’ll become super AND special.

(I’m sure someone else who’s naturally crafty has already come up with this idea, but I refuse to Google it because I’d like to believe I’m the VERY FIRST PERSON to come up with this.)

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT SOME OF YOU DON’T LIVE YOUR LIFE BY A SCHEDULE BUT INSTEAD LIVE ON THE EDGE, WITH THE POSSIBILITY THAT ON A RANDOM WEDNESDAY MORNING YOU COULD FIND YOURSELF WITH NO CLEAN UNDERWEAR?????????

I apologize for the ALL CAPS, OMG! but seriously, you don’t have a laundry day?  I…I…I just couldn’t exist.

This need to have a schedule truly says a lot about the way my brain functions and what’s necessary to keep me sane.  For me, if I don’t have a schedule (and I’ve tried to live my life all willy nilly), I feel incredibly overwhelmed.  Laundry piles up, the bathrooms become hazardous waste areas, and I start imagining burrowed creatures living in my carpet.

I schedule my days’ chores around our weekly outings.  On “off days” when we have no place to go, I do the most chores, on “busy days” I just do piddly, easy things.  I used to do ALL of my chores on one day, but that became too stressful for my already fragile psyche and made me grumpy for three days.  Day one of grumpiness would occur the day before “chore day” because I knew that the next day would be filled with doing stupid chores.  Day two of grumpiness was on “chore day” because, well it was “chore day.”  The third day of grumpiness would occur the day after “chore day” because I never got EVERYTHING on my to do list done, so there’d be much fretting and gnashing of teeth over my inability to live up to my own expectations.

(Wow.  That Jennifer has some issues.)

Here’s a peek at my current weekly schedule.   Sometimes I’m really wild and zany and do Friday things on Thursday or Monday things on Wednesday.

Prepare to be awed or disgusted.

Daily:

Straighten house
Keep kitchen clean by wiping down counters and cleaning out sink, load and unload dishwasher.  (Sidenote:  the dishwasher MUST be unloaded and it’s contents put away before any new meal can be prepared or I get a nasty eye twitch.)
Sort mail
Reduce piles (I wish I could eliminate piles, but that is ridiculously impossible.)

Monday:

Kids laundry (if their hamper is full)
Pay bills

Tuesday:

Main laundry day (towels, clothes; sheets every other week)  (Honestly, sometimes the sheets only get washed every 3 or even 4 weeks.)
Bathrooms and sweep tile floors
Sweep hardwoods (mop kitchen floor once a month) (Or really, only when company is coming. So, uh, rarely.)
Vacuum upstairs

Wednesday:

Vacuum downstairs
Vacuum stairs (hardly ever happens because of it’s pain in the ass factor)
Dust

Thursday:

Kids laundry (if their hamper is full)

Friday:

Wash towels
Windows and baseboards, but only if they are really, really, really, really, really, really bad.
Sweep hardwoods

So, um, please tell me there are others of you out there like me.  I mean, I can’t be the only person who enjoys knowing that every Wednesday, my favorite underwear will be clean and my jeans won’t be crusty anymore.

As for the cleaning, I think it’s pretty obvious from my list that I’m not exactly an ace housekeeper.  I *should* sweep and mop everyday, living with two messy children, but I don’t.  I like to think of my house as “clean enough.”  I believe there are far more important things than a spot-free home.  Things like Twitter and kicking Carson’s ass in Mario Kart certainly rank above crumb removal.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

If only doing laundry and cleaning the pee off of toilets could bring the accolades that playing superheroes brings.

Using my crafty prowess, I one upped Tate’s novice bedsheet capes and made, lovingly, with my own two hands, personalized capes for the children.

I think I may have regained their favor.

(This would be a good time to remind you that my children’s names aren’t really Carson and Ella, and that their superhero logos correspond to their real names.)

Recognize the black lining of Ella’s cape?  Why that’s just a certain lining from an old bridesmaid’s dress of mine (that had been cleaned, don’t worry), repurposed as a cape!   I made Carson’s cape from the skirt of a different old bridesmaid dress that had a barf-free history.

There were a few foils in my quest to out-do Tate and make capes.  The trip to Joann Fabrics for pink, glittery material for Ella’s cape, well, let’s just not talk about it.  It was an unpleasant and sweaty trip thanks to one little boy who will remain unnamed.  (Carson)  Then after spending an hour or so of cutting up the dresses and pinning the patterned pieces together, my sewing machine decided to crap out on me.  “No stitches for you!”  the sewing machine mocked.  Three hours later, adjusting settings, sweating, cursing, and cleaning components of the sewing machine, it still wouldn’t sew.

Not wanting to disappoint the children, I luckily had some Stitch Witchery on hand and I taped and ironed the pieces together.  Another three hours later and the capes were finally ready for Carson and Ella to save the world.

I found the superhero cape pattern at thelongthread.com.  This would have been a very easy, quick project if, you know, I had a functioning sewing machine.

********

I want to thank each of you for your incredibly humbling comments on my last post.  I’m honored by your kind words and compliments.  Perspective is something I often lose sight of, but what I need to remember is that I do write for me and for you, not “them.”  I should stop allowing numbers or lack of recognition from people who don’t know me to a factor into my blogging mood.  What I need is what I have, and that is you, my friends.  Thank you.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

My mission has been to find a pair of jeans that:

1)  Are one color of denim, preferably a dark wash.
2)  Create a sleek line from my hips all the way to my ankles
3)  Fit my hips AND my waist
4)  Are not too long
5)  Do not have any ornamentation on the pockets or pockets with flaps.

Evil roadblocks I encounter over and over:

1)  The jeans are a dark wash, except on the thighs.  Thanks, but my thighs don’t need any extra attention drawn to them.
2)  Most jeans are not wide enough all the way to my ankle, thus creating a “wow, she has really fat thighs” look.  Flare jeans and/or skinny jeans = EVIL.
3)  They fit over my hips but leave a giant gaping space at my waist.
4)  MOST jeans are too long, even those that say “short” or those found in petites.
5)  Rhinestones or buttons or silver designs adorn the pockets and scream “MY ASS IS TRYING TO LOOK LIKE A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL!”

So imagine my dilemma when I walked into J. Crew the other day and found an almost perfect pair of jeans.  They met 3 out of my 5 criteria, but unfortunately were too big in the waist and were too long.  I could hear Stacy and Clinton whispering in my ear that I could always have the jeans altered to fit.  Since the jeans were $98, I knew I couldn’t afford to have someone else alter them.  In a move very unlike me, I decided to buy those $98 jeans and {gulp} attempt to alter them myself.

I’m not a professional seamstress by any stretch of the imagination.  I figured hemming the jeans would be EASY, it would be the waist alteration that would be tricky.  I googled and brainstormed and read sewing forums and came up with a plan to alter the waist.  This is what I did…

Here’s what you’ll need:

1.  Heavy thread. Regular thread won’t work because it’s not strong enough for denim.  I chose blue thread to match the jeans, but I could have chosen a color to match the orange-ish stitching on the jeans.
2.  Denim iron-on patches. Interfacing might have worked, but I wanted something little stronger.
3.  Xanax. Did I mention the jeans cost my $98?

Before cutting on those $98 jeans, I practiced on an old pair of jeans that no longer fit.  I’m glad I took the time to practice because I made a few mistakes.

1. The first “V” cut that I made was way too big, the “V” should have been much skinnier.
2. I didn’t properly attach each side of the “V” to the denim patch and it left a gap at the top.

After practicing, I got to work on the $98 J. Crew jeans.  {Big deep breath}

First, I placed a pin at an angle alongside the two back, side belt loops.  I measured to be sure they were both about the same distance from the belt loop.

Then I cut two skinny “V”‘s into the waistband, along the angle of the pin.  Carefully, I attached the denim patch to the inner side of the waistband, making sure that the sides of the “V”‘s were lined up properly and touching along their edges. Next, I ironed the patch onto the jeans.

With my sewing machine on a zig-zag setting and the stitch length set to 1 mm, I sewed the two edges of the “V” together. I suppose this could have been hand stitched, but it would take a long time.

I tried the jeans on and realized that they still needed to be taken in a bit more.

I decided to remove the upper seam of the center, back belt loop and cut another skinny “V” into the waistband, following the same procedure as explained above.  After sewing the “V” together, I then hand stitched the upper seam of the belt loop back to the waistband.

Originally I didn’t want to remove the belt loops because I was afraid they’d be difficult to reattach, but I wish I had done all three alterations under the belt loops so that the alteration wouldn’t be seen.

I’m really happy with the results, even though my handiwork wasn’t perfect!  Since I NEVER tuck shirts into the waistband of my pants, nobody will ever see the alterations.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I kept trying to assure her that I did not sew any fire ants into the seams.

Anyway, I’m pretty proud of my hand-sewn dress.  Other than the required apron I made in 8th grade and my recent curtains, this was my very first thing to sew from a pattern. My 8th grade Home-Ec teacher would also be very proud that I’m putting my skills to use. (Though, on a completely unrelated note, I have never fully forgiven her for cutting me in the first round of 7th grade cheerleading tryouts. Well, maybe it’s not completely unrelated. I mean, I haven’t used my sewing “talent” in all these years. It’s probably all because of my 8th grade Home-Ec teacher.)

Sure the pattern said EASY!, and maybe it would be easy for an experienced seamstress, but for me, a novice, it wasn’t easy.  There were buttonholes!  And interfacing.  I didn’t even know what interfacing was until I googled it.

I even made a few alterations to the pattern.  It called for appliques.  Appliques!  Ugh!  I know!  That word “applique” is just awful!  Also, I’m just plain old fundamentally opposed to appliques themselves.   An executive decision was made that I didn’t have to put the appliques on the dress.  That was modification one.

The other modification was the lovely ribbon accent I added to the bottom hem.

Now I just have to learn how to make jon-jons for Carson. HA! Ha, ha, ha!! Oh man, hoo boy! I crack myself up.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

For 3 LONG days, Tate and his dad worked and built a fire pit in our backyard.  I’ll admit that I totally didn’t see the point of Tate’s project and that I was certain it was going to be more of a fire TOWER than a fire PIT.  He proved me wrong.  It turned out amazing.

Did I mention it took 3 days (and 2 bottles of Advil) to complete?  Maybe when Tate recovers, we’ll work on the landscaping around the fire pit.

While the men were outside getting stinky, my mother-in-law and I made over my guest room.  I think it looks like something out of a magazine.

The pictures don’t do the room justice, they don’t show off the high ceilings and the wood floors.  Also, somehow I didn’t get a picture of the lamp my MIL hand painted.

As if a fire pit and a room makeover weren’t enough, I enlisted my mother-in-law to help me with the window treatments on the two glass patio doors off of my kitchen.

These stupid patio doors have caused me a ridiculous amount of stress, trying to figure out what to do for window treatments. Privacy isn’t really much of an issue, but in the afternoons, the sun streams in and temporarily blinds us, so I needed something that could easily be raised and lowered, but NOT be blinds.   I also needed to make these myself because I refused to pay the equivalent of college tuition for custom window treatments.

My MIL and I brainstormed and came up with a great, custom-looking solution for the problem.  (FINE, IT WAS ALL MY MIL’S IDEA.  YOU CAUGHT ME, ARE YOU HAPPY?!)

Heavy duty fabric
Fabric for lining the curtains
Heavy duty ribbon/webbing
Stitch Witchery
Velcro fasteners
Rod for hanging the curtains.  I used Magnetic curtain rod because I have steel doors and didn’t want to drill holes into them.
Thread to match the curtain fabric
scissors, straight pins

Isn’t my vintage sewing machine adorable!  (FINE IT’S NOT MINE, IT’S MY MOM’S.  SHEESH, YOU ALL ARE SUCH STICKLERS FOR THE TRUTH.)

It had been a long time since I’d sewn anything other than a button on, so I had to read the directions that came with the sewing machine.

Threading the bobbin was like riding a bike. Except with less soreness in the crotch region.

The curtains turned out pretty well, with mostly straight seams.  We used the velcro to hold the rolled curtain in place.  When the sun gets to blinding, the green webbing can be released and the curtains hang down about halfway down the window.

Here’s the finished look!  Looks pretty nice, huh?

I think my in-laws earned their keep. We might invite them back sometime.

***********

I want to thank each of you for the thoughtful and supportive comments on my last post.  I really wanted to reply to so many of them, but I got overwhelmed, then I got busy (see above).   Thank you for telling me I was overthinking things, for reminding me why I blog, for sticking with me.  Thank you.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

But with accepting my life the way things are, means accepting that the bulk of home related tasks rests upon my often weary shoulders.  It means that I do laundry, and pick up all the water bottles someone leaves all over the house, I plan the majority of meals, I know when we’re out of diapers and Teddy Grahams and soy sauce.  These aren’t necessarily bad or unfair responsibilities, but things that occasionally make me feel bitter and overworked.

I hear my husband talk about his career and we discuss his plans for the future.  They really are our plans for the future, but with the way things are, it means that I agree to move, uproot our family, and lose my safety net of friends every few years for his career.  In other words, I don’t really feel like I have any control over my own future as it’s completely based on what happens to Tate.  I haven’t pursued getting licensed as a Speech-Language Pathologist in nearly three years because I’ve been the devoted wife who’s agreed to move twice and put my career on hold to raise our children.  But I do realize that the way things are, are because I chose this.

Tate has two business dinners and a softball game this week, which he didn’t have to think twice about since he didn’t need to worry about childcare for his two kids.  Of course I’ll be home to take care of them, that’s what I do.  I stay home and tend to the children.  But when I have an opportunity to go out in the evening with friends or when I plan on going out of town for a little blogging conference, I have to make sure Tate will be home or ask my Mother-in-law to come watch the children.  I don’t get to just make plans and go and be free.

I don’t mean to sound like Tate is a modern day neanderthal that comes home and pounds his chest and demands dinner and his woman stay home, care for children.  It isn’t that way at all.  If I weren’t generally happy with the way things are, he’d be fine with me pursuing my career, though I doubt the household responsibilities and childcare arrangements would change if I were working outside the home.  

This is just one of those days when I have a hard time feeling content with my chosen lot in life, despite it being EXACTLY what I always wanted.  

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Let me set up the scenario.  Husband can’t find something and calls to you to help him find it.  “Honey!  I can’t find the ointment/peanut butter/towels/shoes/whatever.”

You call back, “Honey!  It’s right there on the shelf/in the drawer/on the floor/where ever!”

Somehow the Husband cannot find the item.  You are beckoned to come find it for him.  You are irritated because you KNOW that the item is RIGHT THERE.  You huff and puff and roll your eyes on your way to find this item for him.

And voila!  There it is.  It truly is RIGHT THERE.  Husband would have found it if he had looked behind, over, beside…..  Instead of putting any effort into the search, he asked for your help.    Instead of being grateful, he’s irritated that it wasn’t in plain view, and that he’d have to actually LOOK.

This male pattern blindness, as I like to call it, also occurs in the kitchen.  Let’s say that the Husband offers to clean up after dinner, but cleaning up only entails putting dirty dishes in the washer.  It does not include wiping the counters, sweeping the floor, or hand-washing any items not suitable for the dishwasher.  When the “over sight” is mentioned, the Husband claims not to have “seen” the smeary counters, crumby floor, or giant high chair tray in the sink.

Does this happen to all husbands or just the one I’m married to named Tate?

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.