Stick a Fork in it!

'Mom, there are dingle-hoppers everywhere,' Hope announced to us this morning as we were all waking up. Yes, she often dresses like a blue fairy with a bad eye for shoe size. It's amazing she doesn't fall down more often but she's got quite the balance for a 3-year-old.

So I looked out the window and saw these all over our front lawn.

A literal army of little Forks.

I instantly groaned thinking Evo-man was up to his wasteful Shenanigans again, or maybe it was some of Abners friends punking our house. Teenagers can be soooo annoying.

So I went down to investigate and I found this on the door.

Afterthought: If the meaning of this yard prank flys over your head. That's o.k. I forgive you for knowing nothing about Twilight. The setting of the book is mainly centered around the town of Forks, WA (hence the forks reference.) We now return to my reaction.

It was meant for me of all people. My moan and groaning chagrin immediately departed and my school-girl giddiness took over. Wow someone cared enough to come in the middle of the night and risk stepping in Dog droppings to surprise me. Turns out around seven of my Twilight Obsessed Friends all got Fork’ed last night. So now there’s a big mystery Who-Dun-It being bounced around. I for one think it was amazingly clever and way cooler than toilet paper ever could be. I have the bestest friends Ever!

It got me thinking about Twilight again so I snuck off to the movie again this afternoon and guess what – It’s actually better the second time around. Maybe if I go again it will just keep getting better and better and better. Shhhh! Don’t tell Prince Erik.

O.K. I know you’re all sick of hearing about Twilight from me so that’s enough. I did get some other fun surprises today. Princess couldn’t wait to open this little treasure we got in the mail today from Faith of ‘Has Anyone seen my cape?’

She sent me one of her fabulous Etsy creations that I won on a contest on her blog. The surprise was not only did I get the cute Mommy and Me barrette that I picked out.

And she added the sweetest little Love barrette as a bonus.

Thank you Faith! The girls and I love them and I’ll have to get some more, soon. I'm thinking her 'Hope and Joy' barrettes are quite cute as well. Check out her shop sometime soon.

It was really my day for mail. I also received an early Christmas present from my brother Arrow and his wife. They sent me the perfect gift that I have to just totally plug –especially if you have a fire addicted pre-teen in your home. They remembered me blogging about how much I love, love, love scented candles but don’t get them anymore because matches are about as dangerous as markers around here. It’s not a risk I’m willing to make. So they sent me the next best thing.

Scentsy Wickless Candles!

This sweet plug-in has enough wattage in it to melt little wax cubes of delicious scent that can fill your entire home and camouflage the stinkies.

Prince Erik had it going when I got back this evening and it was the most welcoming gift to walk through the front doors and catch a whiff of ‘Vanilla Walnut’ instead of the customary ‘Smelly Diaper’ or 'Burnt Toast'.

Thank you, Thank you Bro and Family.

Last but not least – I did listen to your comments. I even fielded phone calls begging me not to take my scissors to (re-purpose) – and hack up the beautiful tablecloth I scored at the thrift store.

So it will remain a heirloom tablecloth and grace our family table as often as I can bear to leave it there – but never at mealtimes until we learn some table manners.

Such a great 'Happy Thought' Day. Thanks again to everyone who made it possible from pranksters to Faith to Arrow's family.

Smile a While Would Ya?

So I'm finally getting around to passing on a sweet award I got from Treasure Ann of Daily Life Daily Living. For some odd reason I make Treasure Ann Smile. Could she be laughing at the latest disaster my kids are creating or smiling with relief that her house isn’t going bonkers on her? I don’t know but I thank her profusely because I am indeed trying to smile more. And you know smiles are contagious, in a really good, non-germy, way.

So I’m passing on this sweet award to five people who make me smile on a regular basis! Hope you enjoy it ladies.

Of course there are the customary rules that go with the award. The recipients must display the following characteristics.

1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times–we are all human after all)

2. Must love one another

3. Must make mistakes

4. Must learn from others

5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world

6. Must love life

7. Must love kids or animals

And furthermore…

You know there’s always a catch.

Here are the rules for the award

1. The recipient must link back to the award’s creator (http://www.thebabblingsofmere.blogspot.com/)

2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.

3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself

4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.

5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.

6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.

7. You must thank your giver.

So seeing as I’ve already Thanked Treasure Ann. Thanks again.

Without further ado - Five people that make me smile.

Sara of Shower of Roses. Sara is as close to my blog twin as you could find. From six kids (some who like making movies to boot), a crafty heart, to even haveing the same wingchair in our homes, Sara a swell blogging buddy. Plus she shares some of my same addictions – like blogging and spending way too much time on the computer! So Sara thanks for making me smile on a regular basis.

Princess Mama at Down From The Door - Well she gave me one of my biggest smiles this week with a blog post dedicated to me stemming from one comment I made on another post.

One of the Things I love about Princess Mama is that she can smile when her kids get muddy. I think muddy kids is a given condition of most mom’s who live in the Pacific Northwest. Smiling about it means you have a happy soul. I love her photos and think she has the heart of a happy woodland nymph. So Smiles to Princess Mama.

Cindy of Being Cindy (Baldwin) has the most beautiful spirit. She’s a newlywed dealing with Cystic Fibrosis of all things. What I love about Cindy, other than her amazing poetry, and pictures, is how she deals with her challenges. With Faith, Grace and insight mostly found in someone who’s lived a lifetime. Cindy is amazing! And if Cindy can smile through adversity - so can I.

Cheri of Jack and Jill of Many Trades is one of the most crafty people I know. Cheri has lived through every homeowner’s nightmare, of having to basically gut your home because of water damage. She and her husband are doing the work themselves, they are that talented. So I smile because she gives me hope that I too can conquer my homes difficulties.

Mrs. Darling of Dishpan Dribble helps me smile because she constantly reminds me, through her posts, that no matter how dark things might seem there’s always reason to have Hope for the future if I’m doing what I know I should be doing. Thanks for the smiles!

Hope you all have a Smiley Day!

Cheesy Hot Date!

So I’m kind of glad I live in the real world occasionally.

So my husband and I went on our first date in, um, 7 months. I know we should go out more often but having a Bi-Polar child makes it hard to leave home. But seeing he sleeps like a log we decided that the midnight showing would be o.k. to try.

Prince Erik was bending over backward to show some chivalry by opening doors and getting me sugar to keep me awake all the while talking how we would go work out the next day. And he gets bonus points for being 1 of only 8 guys in the theater. They all looked like they were trying to get bonus points from their sweeties as well. I bet they would have all liked to have been watching the Bond film instead.

We got there two hours early, see I was a bit excited, and two of the five theaters showing a midnight showing were already full. Thankfully we did get o.k. seats.

I even pulled these together for us to wear.

Prince Erik says I'm much better than Bella and I'd take him over Edward anyday!



So what did this obsessed Twilight Mom have to think about the movie? There were many parts I really enjoyed. Jacob’s hot, the humans were so human, liked the scene with the Cullen’s trying to cook people food. So wish Alice and Jasper could have been given bigger roles. The baseball scene was fun as well.

I think my husband said it best when he said that this movie is a very close adaptation to the book. He found the books to be very, um, shall I say, Cheesy. Somehow reading romance dialogue in print sounds a lot better than hearing it.

There were parts of the movie where I giggled and smirked where I don’t feel I was meant too. There were some over the top characterizations by some of the actors, that just felt a little forced or too theatrical. Who can blame them because they were trying to portray intense flowery written ten page romance scenes from the book with just a singular look. And honestly, sometimes it didn’t quite work.

So what am I saying? I’m actually torn. I liked it and I was disappointed all at the same time. I’m tempted to go see it again to see if it plays better when I’m actually more awake. I wish I could give the cast and crew two different grades. A for Effort and C for Cheese. If you like that then you’ll like the movie. I really did laugh a lot, (not sure if I was supposed to) so I would say go ahead and go if you want a good laugh.

Honestly the Twilight World in my brain is much better and a Trip to Forks with my Prince would have been a dream-better date. But we can’t do that in one night so a movie will do for now.

So what did you think about the movie???

Now that I'm more awake - I do think that I would have enjoyed the movie a bit more had I gone with my girly friends. It's a total chick flick, and I don't think I would have been as embarressed if I had been hanging out with the females. I am glad I got a date out of it, though, because Heaven Knows I need to have a date with P.E. every now and then.

Thrifty Talent Treasure Decisions?

So I've been spending a lot of time in the local Thrift stores looking for things I can re-purpose. Sometimes I find other people's hidden talents and my jaw about hit the floor when I found this Beauty for $6.99. Usually I just buy the $1 sales on Monday. But this was screaming at me to take it home, from the second I saw it. Wonderfully fits my honkin big dining room table as well.

It's all hand embroidery and the backside looks almost as good as the front.

These small details just amaze me.

I just can't imagine the hours and hours someone lovingly put into this piece. It should have been a family heirloom.

So of course I brought it home. But my creative mind is spinning and there's this big decision I'm trying to make concerning this tablecloth. See I never use tablecloths in my home.

Why?

Well see I've bred a bunch of these here mini creative genius' creatures like me who can’t seem to get enough of markers...

Or pens, pencils, dirt and even dare I say mud...

And scissors. I won't tell you what past heirloom they snipped with scissors, but it wasn't pretty.

And then there’s the fact that the whole family has the table manners of a slew of messy barnyard animals.

So when I’ve used tablecloths in the past they basically have to be washed and spotted after every single meal. And I’m thinking that this work of art has seen the inside of a drawer more often than it hasn’t. If I keep it as a table covering it would continue to sit in the dark except for special occasions. Table runners fare much better in my home.

So I’m a wee bit tempted to re-purpose it into a Sunday dress for Lea. I can totally see this in the skirt section of the dress.

And this on the corner of a matching bolero jacket.

I've visioned the whole lovely creation in my head. The colors would rock with Lea's hair as well.

I recently got permission from my mom to re-purpose some of her Cedar-chest treasures into dresses and baby blankets. Beautiful works of art that have been spending that past decades in darkness. I want to give them a new life because they are too pretty for mere pillowcases or dishtowels. And I think I could make something lovely and also something worth handing down to the next generation as well.

'But Fawndear, were you not just telling us how completely messy your children were. How would this dress survive being worn by one of them?' I know your thinking.

Dunno?

In the past they have treated Sunday dresses with a bit more care. But it would still be tempting fate. I'm good at that.

What Do You Think? Should I go for it or save this for Special Occasions tablecloth only?

Happy Thoughts

So I had a couple of downer weeks. Who cares? I had a pretty good excuse considering my house is revolting.

Turns out the scale cared. I avoided it while Carb loading on comfort food. Besides how much damage could two weeks do?

PLENTY!!!

Turns out all the weight I worked so hard to loose over the last 2 ½ months. Well it found me again – in only two weeks. No-Way! So I’m back to square UNO! I was ahead of Smiley in the Accountability Wager now I’m about 4 lbs behind. UGH!

My vice – Stress! I’m an emotional eater and I let the emotions of finances get to me. It was my biggest baddest bump since I started the whole Healthy Life stuff thingy around two years ago.

Kind of got me thinking about one of my favorite movies…

Wendy: You just think happy thoughts. They lift you into the air.

Hook: Alas, I have no happy thoughts.

Wendy: That brings you down!

Me: And in my case, if your down, you weigh a ga-zillion more pounds than if your light on your feet and happy. I've been more like Hook for a couple of weeks and my kids will agree with all my unpleasantness.

I really need this whole Thankful Heart Month and it has helped. Kind of makes me shutter thinking where I’d be without it. Give me Happy Thoughts!

So I'm happy to report that I met with my Young and Gorgeous Counselor this week and am pretty sure that I can jump start the whole Accountability to the Max thing back to life.

Bring on the Happy Thoughts. No I'm not giving up and I'll track every crumb of food between now and the end of the year. I will make my dreams come true.

In other Fawndear news - No thrilling before and after pictures.

More like before and after tidy pictures. I now realize that I need to find a new home for the T.V.

The Piano would look much better without the big black thing on top of it. I need to work on shelf clutter too. As well as Floor clutter.

It might still get really messy after just a normal hour of my kiddo’s in there. But there are reasons for spaces and I’ll try and keep them task oriented.

From the picture you can see I moved my sewing station out of the dining room and set up my Elf Station in the family room so I could keep a better eye on the munchkins while I’m working.

I’ve lined up all my $1 day thrift store sale finds (sheets, slip-covers, curtains, and tablecloths), and they are more than ready for me to turn them into nightgowns for my girlies, a Christmas Tree Skirt or two, aprons, and a few other odd and end gifts. Can I tell you I’m Too-Excited about the whole thrift thing.

So I’ve got a new goal – Christmas in $100 or less. Don’t know if it’s possible but I’m going to try hard. The only thing I’m not including is special food for Christmas Dinner and postage to mail gifts to family. Because honestly, I expect postage to cost more than what I’m spending to make the gifts in the first place. (Sorry I’m so cheap this year guys!) So I guess I should rephrase and say Christmas Gifts in $100 or less. Wish me luck!

So my Christmas Countdown for this week:

1. Finish presents that will need to be mailed.

2. Start working on all the sewing crafts.

3. Focus on Happy Thoughts!

It's Raining Hair, among other things.

So I think I need to lay off the Rain dancing for a bit. It’s been so much fun that I think I’ve inadvertently encouraged whoever is in charge of rain to send more because, well, there’s that crazy lady down there, dancing in the rain again. This last week we’ve had what they call the ‘Pineapple Express’ move through our area where the rain is super warm but also super heavy making for some pretty fun rain dancing but also some amazing flooding in our nearby valley. In fact, in the 11 plus years that we’ve lived here it was the second worst flood levels I’ve seen.

So the kids got a flood day off school today. Not a snow day, but a flood day. I grew up with days off for potato harvest and deer hunt, not flooding. I guess I should be grateful that they don’t have days off for critter hunting here. But what would people hunt? Probably moles, garbage lovin' raccoons, and a possum or two. Now I know why the deer are in the city more and more recently. It’s because you can’t discharge a firearm in the city boundaries. Those deer are pretty smart.

Well, since the munchkins were all out of school for the weather, I engaged myself in some more crafty stuff, because it was a rain day and all. I worked on another fairy portal for my friend who’s the biggest Disney fanatic I know, other than myself. So I tried to recreate Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Disneyland.

I think it turned out o.k. and loved the detail of shingles on the roof, and of course I had to add some pixie dust.

Alas, I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to my munchkins. Normally it’s little Hope that gives me the run-around. Not so today. This time around it was my-old-enough-to-know-better Princess.

Thankfully it didn't involve water like shown in the above picture. It involved something much more damaging - Scissors!

Apparently she decided that her bangs were too long and she wanted to look beautiful.

Then she walked up to me with a huge grin on her face and asked if she was beautiful. I tried taking pictures but they were mostly fuzzy like this.

But it looked like she had given herself a humdinger of a mullet cut and nearly taken the bangs out by their roots.

Oh, Heaven’s to Betsy! What next? So I made the mistake of saying that it was as short as a boys hair in places. That was a mistake because her face crumpled and she immediately started crying because she didn’t want to look like a boy.

So I trotted her off to the hair-dressers because I knew saving any semblance of her femininity would require someone more skilled with cutting hair than me with the hair clippers. All I can do are buzz cuts. Then in the magazines I showed her all the cute pixie cuts on girls, to show that short hair was indeed fetching on some females.

After all was said and done it looks like she still got a bad hair cut. I didn’t want them to even it up or her hair would have been less than an inch long in most places. So she got the layered Do. And all while she was talking the head off of the poor hair-dresser. Princess loves to talk and was constantly spouting off things such as…

‘What am I wearing,’ questioned Princess?

‘A Cape to keep the hair off you?’ replied the kind Beautician.

‘It’s like a hair slide park, you drop the hair on it and it slides right off,’ Princess would barely pause to take a breath and then go on giving everyone there a play-by-play analysis of which directions her hair would be sliding, interspersed along with little random nuggets of thought she would pull out of the air. Like talking about her 1st grade boyfriend, and discussing that she felt she would look like a pixie if her hair was colored blue and had sparkles in it. And maybe she could even spike it up. Wouldn’t that be cute?

Wow, I raise the rebels young around here. My six year old wants blue spikey hair. Needless to say everyone, in the establishment were cracking smiles left and right.

I then took her mug shot, to remind her that we made an agreement never to cut hair again until after she had been to Beautician School when she is Abners age. I think it looks kind of perky like her.

I really need to get my camera fixed so inside pictures don't always look so yellow. Here's mug 2.

So I realize that I missed the Christmas list for this week. But to be honest my house is trashed and I don’t think there’s a clean, uncluttered surface anywhere. I lose things if I set them down and I still haven’t found the truck keys which have been missing almost three weeks. So I’m going to take a couple of days off blogging to get down and dirty and try and give that clutter monster a good one-two punch. But when I get back I should have some scary before, and splendid after pictures for your perusal.

P.S. Before I forget. I'm Thankful that I don't have to spend tons of time combing Princess's hair while she whines loudly about how I'm-ripping-the-hair-out-of-her-head-cause-I'm-pulling-so-hard.

Zoinks - How to pick a Thing-a-ma-jig Winner?

There Really is no other way to do this. So this here Knucklehead will attempt to use your favorite (hmmm) words to announce the Marvelous winner of my alternate reality Thing-a-ma-jig Give-away. My English Teacher would be so Proud!



Zoinks, How to choose a winner? I know – I’ll just kick my Sugar-jets into gear long enough to go to Random.org to pick my splendid winner for me. Then I’ll sit back, throw on some Holiday music twinkle-ling with tintinnabulation (had to look the definition of this one up [The ringing and sounding of bells]). What you don’t hear is the sheer elation of my Yepperdoodle family who is just going to Love that I’m getting more of my clutter off the counter and sending it to… Ms. Mary Poppins herself – Treasure Ann, for her random word of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. So Huzzah for Treasure Ann! I Hope you enjoy your new Rock-On sparkles courtsey of Ethel.



And to all my commenters, blog followers, and lurkers I wish you all a most Wonderous and Blessed Day.

Toodles