Polka dot, polka dot, polka d--- DAMMIT!

This song will apparently leave my head...never.

Sigh.

At least Tank enjoyed the movie.

In Which My Head Explodes

I've been a bit busy lately.

There's the slightest chance that Shawn will transfer jobs and that this will necessitate a move to that state just south of Georgia that has a lot of oranges.

Like any normal person (bwahahaha!), that means that I've been in a bit of a tizz lately, what with all the dramatic worryings over the what-ifs involved.  The main worry is all the To-Do items on the Gilligan's Island house.  Holy crap, people...it's like I LIVE with a freakin' paintbrush in my hand; how can it be that so much stuff needs to be painted?!

So, anyway.  That's been what's up recently.

While I tried to work on a few things and also do my two part-time jobs, I have let Tank watch more TV than usual.  As in, WAY more.  And my descent into TV-parenting has been quite the education, let me tell you.  For instance, I've begun to ponder some of life's biggest questions:

- why do the kid voice actors on Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go all sound like they're being squeezed?  I'm sure it's supposed to sound like ENERGY!  and ENTHUSIASM!  but it just comes off sounding like a boa constrictor got hold of them.  "And WE need YOUR HELP!"

- where are Dora and Diego's parents, anyhow?  She's always off tramping over mountains and rainbows and crap and Diego's swinging from vines over hostile terrain and rescuing God-knows-what kind of flea-bitten, diseased creature.  Is there no parental supervision in cartoons?

Hi, we're Dodo the Exploder and El Diablo.  We're here to shove Spanish down your ever-loving throat!




- when the HELL did Fred and Daphne and Velma and Shaggy hook up?  Was that really necessary to sell a friggin' CARTOON????

- I can't say anything bad about Kick Buttowski.  Kick actually kinda rocks.

- but Curious George.  Ohmysweetpantaloons, what the @*$&% is up with that damn monkey?!?!  He is the biggest f-up of all time and if I were that man in the yellow hat, I'd have tranq'ed his little monkey butt and sold him to an organ grinder.

- Super Hero Squad.  Easily the most annoying theme song of all time.  And with catchy lines like, "A Norse is a Norse, of course, of course", who could possibly resist?  ME, THAT'S WHO!

- which brings me to the point of all this which is that TV is bad, kids.  Bad, bad juju.  Leave that stuff alone.  Which is what Tank will be doing from now on, since he decided to jump me unexpectedly and rupture my spleen with a Hulk Smash.  I had only a split second after hearing him shriek, "HUK SASSSHHH!" to react.  I probably saved my large intestine, at least.

Here's hoping your spleen has a great weekend...

Trash to Treasure - Sweet Child O Lime

Here I am, broadcasting live from the Taj MaHell!  We drove up Friday night and our best pal/neighbor on Gilligan's Island drove up yesterday morning so that we could all get out on the river in canoes.  THAT was way less fun than anticipated.  The short version is that the water was about 3 feet too low, even with recent rains, and we walked more than we rowed.  By the end of the 3 1/2 hour trip, we could barely lift our arms! But, a bad time with good friends is still a good time, right?!  And Tank thoroughly enjoyed his first canoe outing, so all's well that ends well.

Tank, rocking the Personal Flotation Device.

I had to drop some stuff off at Goodwill the other day and just as I got there, the bottom fell out.  Rather than stand out in the rain getting my butt soaked while I strapped Tank back in his car seat, I decided to poke around.  I happened upon this little (about 10" tall) lamp and thought it had potential.

I snagged it for a whopping $3.99

Important first step:  make sure it works!

Next, tape up whatever you don't want painted:

Quick coat of primer (it dried amazingly fast in the hot sunshine!):

Then, a coat of color.  And then a second coat of color!

Here's everything I used.  I couldn't decide between the two appliques unti I saw them with the painted lamp base.  They were each $3.49 at Joann's Fabrics.  The lamp shade was $7.98 at WalMarxist.  Already had the fabric fuse.

After holding both appliques up to the shade, I liked the bird better,

although both were cute.

So, here's the finished product.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I just love the fun color!

We'll be loading up shortly and heading back to Gilligan's Island.  Hope your weekend was great!

A Good Day to Be Little

As a mom, I am always trying to find new ways to do it better.  Not to spoil Tank or try to create in him all the attributes I wish I had in myself.  Being a good mom--to me--is about just being there with him and for him.  So, I have a lot of little customs and traditions with Tank.

One is when he wakes up in the morning and I go into his room.  I tell him that I missed him while he was sleeping.  And then I ask him, "Is today a good day to be little?"  He always says yes.

It's my job and my joy to make every day a good day to be little.  Not to buy him everything he sees or to take him fabulous places.  For Tank, like all children, a grown-up's time is the best gift in the world.  For now, at least, a half-hour of Mommy lying in the floor playing Matchbox cars is better than a new toy...and I love that!

Having said that, it's time to admit that I am not above spoiling him a little! 

Today, we were going to take him to the beach, but the weather didn't cooperate and unusually high tides were expected to flood the road out to the beach.  So, we went with Plan B and took Tank to a pathetic little "carnival" that had set up in town.  It was really sad and the gray evening did nothing to improve it.  Ten old, creaky rides with the paint peeling off them and more lights missing than not were plopped down in front of the National Guard Armory and a sign that read "CARNIVAL!" directed us into a muddy parking lot.  We were one of two families enjoying the big event. 

But here's the thing:  when you're little, it's magic!  Tank didn't see the missing light bulbs and the peeling paint.  He wasn't mentally calculating the odds that the guy running the mini-Scrambler was wanted in six states.  To him, it was the biggest and best thing in the world.

And that's why every day is a good day to be little.  It's the lesson I try to take from Tank...to see things with new, less cynical eyes once in a while. 

To let the magic sneak back in.

Sniffing Too Many Paint Fumes

Well, apparently it's been too long since I've had a project going, because I'm starting to go a little nuts.

On Saturday, I convinced Shawn that we should paint the living room here at Gilligan's Island.  So, we hauled all the little stuff out, moved the big stuff to the center of the room and got going.  Honestly, it didn't take all that long.  In 4 hours, we had painted the walls and the trim and felt oh-so-self-satisfied when we took off that evening for a minor league baseball game and pizza.

The living room wasn't offensive, but its yellow walls just weren't working for me.  The room had been yellow when we moved in and I later painted it with a color called something like Navajo Sand or something...which turned out yellow.  I mean, EXACTLY the same shade of yellow as before.  Out of ideas, I left it alone for a while (four years) and just didn't give it much thought.

We had some paint left over from the Taj MaHell that I just loved...Gallery Taupe by Behr.  It's a great neutral that isn't too light, but isn't too dark either.  The living room doesn't get much light, even during the day, so I didn't want to go too dark, but I do like it when there is a discernable difference between the wall and trim colors.

I don't have any good photos of the room before, but here's a patch job in progress over the mantle...you can see the yellow paint:

Not too awful, but...meh.

Here's the room, after a couple coats of Gallery Taupe and Behr's Ultra Pure White in semi-gloss for the trim:

It's hard to really see it from these photos...today is rainy and blah, so that might be part of it.  But trust me, as much as we did NOT want to repaint this room, both of us keep looking at it and saying, "Wow.  I REALLY like that color!"

Here's a sample of the color from The Internets:

You heard it here first, folks:

I am excited about...beige.

Tank Does Dollywood

I never did update after our trip to Tennessee.  I was worried that Dollywood would disappoint, but it did not.

For an amusement park, it's really not bad!  Clean, safe and well-run, we found the park to be a lot of fun.  The other patrons were polite and waiting in lines wasn't unpleasant at all.  (I'm too tired to do it, but just assume there's a snarky remark here about the jackasses at Six Flags Over Georgia)

Tankie rode his first rollercoaster, Blazing Fury, and got a bit unnerved.  Ever the Tankster, he didn't miss a beat before requesting to ride it again.  Shawn was thrilled to see him tackling his fear head-on.

Didn't take many photos, as we wanted to ride the water rides and I left the backpack in one of the lockers.  Here's a pic of Tankie looking longingly at the toy cars in one of the shops:

And here he is, enjoying his first ice cream cone.  Apparently, ice cream makes you nutso.

So, a great time was had by all and it was a good introduction for Tank into the world of thrill rides.  We'll definitely go back.

Note:  Shawn wants it noted that he questions the logic of putting an all-you-can-eat country buffet in a theme park.  The good news is, nobody hurled.



My arch-nemesis, Betty Crocker

So, it's Memorial Day weekend, here on Gilligan's Island.  We're going to the house of some friends across the street for dinner tomorrow and I volunteered to bring a dessert.

Those of you who know me, are laughing right now.

It's not that I can't cook, per se.  It's just that I don't.  And when I do try, strange things happen.  I've had accomplished culinary artists provide me with a "foolproof recipe", supervise my every move and be rendered speechless by the ensuing tragedy.  It would be funny except that I am hungry.

When we were waiting and hoping for a child, people didn't ask what we'd name a son or daughter, but what we'd feed them. 

I do manage to keep us all alive, but it's usually only because I rely heavily on processed and pre-packaged foods.  I'm working on that, but two jobs and two houses and an active little dude all add up to me not having a ton of time to LEARN how to cook.  As I explained to my sister, the Farm Maven, I don't have a repertoire of recipes available to me.  There was silence on her end of the line as she digested this news.

Then, always the Fixer, she began to recite a "foolproof and easy" recipe for a dessert that I could take over to our friends' tomorrow.  After the seventh ingredient, my eyes rolled back in my head and I started looking at the tubs of cookie dough at Kroger.  Seriously...who has the TIME?!

But, in Country Living this month, there was an easy-peasy recipe for petit-fours.  THREE ingredients:  pound cake purchased from the grocery store, confectioner's sugar and water.  I CAN DO THAT, I thought to myself!  AND IT WILL BE SO PRETTY, JUST LIKE THE MAGAZINE PHOTO!

Damn you, Country Living, you deceitful wench!

First of all,  in order to pour the icing over the cake, I needed cooling racks to set the cakes on.  I do have them, I swear...but they're at the Taj MaHell.  Not wanting to buy something I already had and DEFINITELY not wanting to go to the store on the Saturday before Memorial Day in a seaside community...I improvised.

With spaghetti noodles.

(Hey, it actually worked.  Don't be a hater)

So, cooling rack dilemma solved, I got started.  My next disaster  minor setback was that the ratio in the recipe was all wrong.  Two cups sifted confectioner's sugar and four tablespoons water does NOT make a "60-second frosting."  It makes a six-hour hot mess.

Observe:

I kept adding more and more sugar until it finally reached a consistency somewhere between snot and cement.  As you can see, it didn't neatly cascade down the cakes, but instead just made a couple of uneven streaks and called it a day.

I sliced up TWO poundcakes and used so much sugar that I only got about a third of the dang things glazed before I ran out.  So, I DID have to go to the stupid store on the Saturday before Memorial Day, in a seaside community.  Tank was a good sport and went along for the ride, which was good because...like he had a choice, right??

Since he was such a good boy, he was allowed to pick a Matchbox car as a prize.  I believe he chose most wisely:

A Hong Kong Phooey car.  Awesome on a number of levels.

Sadly, the awesomeness ends right there.  The petit-fours experiment was abandoned and all the Rhesus monkeys were set free, before more harm could come to them.

I've decided to take a no-bake pie tomorrow.

I know what you're thinking...no way she can eff that up.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

 

****UPDATE****
The Farm Maven read the above and had this to say:  "Well, if nothing else, you can be proud that you've managed to somehow reach this point in your life without actually learning to cook."

We celebrate the small victories here, folks.