Poets and Saints
…and the moms who try to be both.Archive for Creativity
What We’ve Been Up To
Playing outside in the Fall sunshine
Our impromptu “flag-making” party. A request from the little one.
Finally, starting on the Halloween costume. We are trying to do a homemade version of Princess Lolly from Candyland. So that this..
…can be the model for my little girl’s costume. Crown done.
Now on to the dress.
Otherwise we’re enjoying the beauty of Fall and all the exciting things that come with it. Hopefully we’ll soon have a baby to announce with our impending adoption. Less than two weeks to go until the baby arrival and the date the costume needs to be done. Which will get here first? We’re wondering that same thing.
Rainy Day Inspiration
I’m feeling a bit down today. Nothing’s wrong, so it might be the rainy weather, or the fact that my daughter has awakened me too early the last few mornings or the wait for our adoption.
Whatever it is, this inspires me.
Even when my day has gone to pot, or I’m feeling like a failure, whenever I get out in nature I feel a little bit better. I guess you could say nature is my therapist.
The poppies are my favorite. They’re psychedelic red and look like big ruffled cabaret skirts. If I ever move, I’m taking these with me.
The view from under the willow. When the branches grow low, you might call this our sanity room.
Baby sunflowers. Can’t wait until August when they turn into giant suns.
I love the raindrops on the flowers. I think I feel a song coming on…
…raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens….
Stop me now or I’ll be singing this the rest of the day.
Quilt Complete
The quilt is done! I finished a week or so ago and forgot to tell anyone. My mind was consumed with packing for our camping trip and finishing up all the year end programming. I would have put it on her bed, but we still don’t have mattresses. No mattresses, no place to put the bedspread. Might as well hang it with the clematis vine.
Now on to painting one little girl’s bedroom purple. This weekend. Wish me speedy painting. It brings back memories of furiously painting her nursery while listening to the soundtrack of Monty Python’s Spam-a-lot. Maybe I need to take pick it up from the library again. It makes for great painting.
Quilt Top
The quilt top is done. It’s slow going here with all the adoption paperwork and several other projects in progress. But it’s coming along.
Movie Star Family Night
Last Friday night we had some friends over. We decided rather late in the day to go ahead and do our Family Fun night in conjunction with having company, because we knew these folks pretty well and they are great about doing silly things with kids.
Our theme was “Movie Star Night.” I wore sunglasses and a feather boa and my daughter wore a princess dress with a “Gas and Diner” ball cap. My husband wore sunglasses and dog ears, which has nothing to do with movie stars unless you are Lassie.
Then we made movie star place settings which involved lots of glitter glue and a few markers. I’m sure movie stars are all about glitter glue. Movie stars and three-year-olds.
I didn’t plan a movie star menu because we can’t afford filet mignon or lobster, so we settled for our standard Friday night fare of pizza. Our friends were so gracious and brought a movie star appetizer: smoked salmon and cream cheese on fancy crackers. Mmmm…we ate a lot of crackers.
Thanks to the Family Fun Night book by Lisa Bany Winters, the games were the real treat but they may not work for young children. (Note: They involve a lot of silliness. I hope you’re okay with that. If not, then you’re in trouble if we have you over for a Family Fun Night.)
Game One: Making a Movie
Turn on the camera. Have one person pose or do something simple (reading a book, playing, sitting, sleeping) and film them. Turn off the camera, switch actors and have them doing the exact same motion or position. Then turn the camera back on. Be sure to keep your camera in the same position to get the right effect. When you watch it, it will appear as if one person switches into another magically. You can even switch a person with a stuffed animal in the same position. This one was pretty funny to the adults, but my daughter had a bit of trouble following the idea. What worked best was if she did the first pose and then one of us repeated her pose. The funniest one was when she stood in front of the camera sticking her fingers in her mouth and then one of our friends had to repeat it. Go with the flow and don’t worry about looking dumb. These movies are for you only, so just have fun!
Game 2: Movie Dubbing
This one is best for the quick witted person or someone who likes doing character voices. You turn off the volume on a scene in a Disney movie and then dub in your own character voices for the scene. My husband and our friend were incredible at this, but I was not very good. I’m also not sure that young kids can really participate, but our daughter loved watching the videos and hearing our voices.
Both of these games made for a really fun evening, but it’s partly having the right people who are not afraid of making fools of themselves. Since we do that on a regular basis, I guess we’re good candidates.
Cheap Family Fun
Today I’m starting a new series called “Family Nights” where I post ideas of things to do with your family that are good, cheap fun. The picture above goes with tonight’s theme of “Summer in March” and reminds me of all the good things I love about summer. Of course whenever we go visit Grandma and take a dip in her community pool in the retiree neighborhood we scare away the old folks into hiding. Toddlers + pools = screaming and splashing and fleeing senior citizens. Even though there won’t be any swimming tonight, we’ll hold summer in our hearts and remind ourselves that the season of biking and playgrounds and summer concerts is coming soon! Because frankly I’m so sick of winter I’m about to go bury my head in the snow.
To make sure that these family nights are indeed a good time, my family will be trying each of them out starting with tonight’s theme of “Summer in March.” Most of the upcoming themes come from a great book called Family Fun Nights by Lisa Bany Winters. For more family night inspiration check out Whitakker Women’s blog. Since we don’t have a lot of money you’ll find that these ideas are cheap and (hopefully) a piece of cake to pull off.
Here’s our plan for “Summer in March” Family Night:
1. Going out to eat hot dogs at Coney Island–What’s summer without hot dogs? (You could also buy hot dogs and make them at home, which would be cheaper.) Since Coney Island is on my list of things I want to do this year, we’re heading downtown for some chili dogs and then back home for summer games.
2. Indoor Summer Games:
- Marco Polo: The living room version
- Playing indoor “beach ball” volleyball (works with a balloon too)
- Limbo!
3. Finishing the night with ice cream sundaes. (Don’t forget the chocolate and peanuts on top!)
Sunglasses and shorts are optional, but make it a lot more fun! I think my legs are so albino by now that I will be wearing capri’s and will spare you all the pain of such whiteness.
Hopefully our camera will cooperate and I can get a few pictures (minus my albino legs). Our camera is dying a slow death where it glitches and we lose all our pictures. I am downloading pictures as quickly as I take them, but sometimes the pictures don’t even make it from the living room to the computer. If we are in luck tonight, then I’ll share some good stuff this weekend.
5 Minutes of Brain Candy
So here’s this fun little website called Sproost which determines what your decorating style is based on a quiz. The quiz shows you pictures of various rooms and you click which ones you like and hate. All I can say is this quiz nailed me. I wasn’t even a mix of styles, I turned out to be 100% vintage modern. It’s flea market eclectic meets modern furniture. I like to say antique funky meets Ikea. I can’t say my house is decorated this way, but I’d like it to be. So guess what I’ll be doing this summer? (Hint: It involves perusing garage sales.)
Treasure hunting. Or junk hunting. Whatever you want to call it.
P.S. Hubby is also 100% vintage modern. Good thing we’re a match.
Quilting
If you saw my list from a few days ago, you’ll know that I like trying new things. I am not always successful, but I’ll try it because I know that is the only way to move ahead and expand my comfort zone.
So here goes…I’m making a quilt for my daughter’s bedroom. I’ve never made one before and I chose the easiest pattern I could find. I’m not even sure if I can call it a real quilt. Don’t you have to be a good sewer for one of those? I think you at least have to know what you’re doing. Me, I know very little.
Except colors. This is our quilt laid out after cutting the pieces. We went with a purple, pink and green color scheme inspired by Amy Butler’s fabrics and my daughter’s request for her favorite color. Butler’s quilts are so beautiful, but I am not using her patterns. Instead I chose a easy lap quilt from the Bend the Rules Sewing book and am making it big enough for a twin bed. We’ll see how it goes, but if I end up with a comforter from Target you’ll know it turned out to be a disaster.
I am also picking paint colors and thinking that dreary March will be a good time for all that painting and redecorating excitement. After all, I do not have any Spring Break plans like the majority of my neighbors who fly south and then rub it in with their gorgeous tans.
I’ll just stay my albino self with a few purple paint splotches here and there. Perfect for spring.
The Art of Knitting
I am taking a knitting class right now and am finding myself at odds with the project I’m making. Fingerless mits. Sounds easy right? That’s what I thought, until they subjected me to size 2 needles which are about the width of uncooked spaghetti. I have ripped out my mistakes at least 3 times. Ouch.
I’m what you’d call a “beginner” knitter. I have completed a hat (one year ago) and am working on a scarf (not quite done), but when I got in the room and the teacher told me to cast on 48 times, I train wrecked it. And not once either, but twice, which means I had to cast on 3 times. That’s a grand total of 144 times. (For the non-knitters out there, casting on is the way you get the yarn on the needle. It’s a special stitch that you don’t use any other time but the beginning of a project.)
I felt like the slow learner in the room. No, I was the slow learner considering that the only other student in my class had been knitting for years and has made socks. Socks! I’m sure the instructor was glad to have Ms. Socks in the room and was inwardly rolling her eyes at me as I cast on for the third time.
The rest of the class went fine (Ms. Socks did mess up once) but I’ve made numerous mistakes as I’ve worked on the cuff of the mit at home. I’m somewhat getting the hang of these needles and working in the round, but I can’t say it’s been easy or relaxing. Wasn’t that why I took the class in the first place?
Since then I have reminded myself that the reason I’m doing it is so I don’t end up doing hats and scarves for the rest of my life. I need to learn to knit in the round (for mits and socks) and eventually on to other things (bikinis excluded). My husband pointed out the bikini pattern in the knitting book, but there are some things you just say no to. Besides I can’t think of anything more uncomfortable. Except, perhaps, a knit thong.
The shop is a renovated house and their yarns are simply beautiful. I get great joy just walking around touching all the colors and textures, imagining the sweaters and scarves and baby things that might be made. What can I say? I am a shopper who has to touch things. I have a really hard time controlling myself in stores that say, “Do Not Touch the Merchandise.” It’s like smacking your cat on the nose for playing with the catnip toy. It’s just not right.
If nothing else, this class has inspired me to keep growing, keep doing, keep letting myself fail, even if I am embarrassed in the process. There is something beautiful about taking risks. It changes us in ways we cannot know. It pushes us on to new adventures.
Another List, Another Blogger
Her list is so much cooler than mine. But I gotta give her credit, her list from last year inspired me to do my own. And here I am, a year later, another list.
Be inspired and think of the things you’d like to do this year.
Simple things. Small Goals. You don’t have to stick to it. Or you just might.
