penny carnival

Boredom busters and kid-made Christmas cards

I have this dream of one day running my family like a well-organized, stimulating boarding school. Each night after the kids go to bed, I'll lay out the fun and educational activities for the next day, prepare healthy meals and then have time for five miles on the treadmill, a bubble bath and an Ogilvie Home Perm. 

Or something like that.

I usually snap back to reality when the microwave beeper goes off letting me know the frozen burritos are ready to eat.

When I don't have time to put my long-lost degree in elementary education to use, these are a few of the no-brainer activities I fall back on when we need something to do:

-Freeze dancing. Play some '80s music, dance like mad, hit pause, freeze, rinse and repeat. It never gets old.

-Crafts. Of course. I always have the painting easel set up, a giant jar of Crayons on the kids' table in the kitchen, and plenty of blank paper on hand. Kid-friendly scissors go over big here, too. Lately Magpie will come up to me and ask, "Can I cut?"

-Play dough. This recipe for homemade play dough is way better than the stuff you buy in the store. 

-Baking cookies. This can be dangerous, but sometimes it's worth the extra calories when the girls are begging for something fun to do. When my willpower is strong, we bring the cookies to our neighbors.

-Cleaning. The girls love being put to work. They'll gladly spray and wipe down windows, put clothes away in drawers and wash walls. The house isn't always cleaner when they're done, but they have looks on their faces like they've just cured cancer or something. 

-Go to the library. They get so excited for this, you'd think they were going to Disneyland. Note: They've never been to Disneyland so maybe that's why it works? Keep the bar low when it comes to expectations for fun? Hmm ... Anyhow, I always make sure I have a diaper on library outings because there's something about that place that makes Magpie poop.

-Don't feel like getting in the car? Push the couches together in the living room to make one giant couch and call it the library. Pile up a stack of books and read them one by one. My sister and I did this for years when we were kids.

-Go for a walk.

-Clean out a closet.

-Watch home videos on the TV. Nothing thrills the girls more than seeing how they talked and looked six months ago.

-Have a picnic on the kitchen floor.

-Exercise. Pick out the cheesiest workout video from On Demand and press play. Avoid "strip tease." I made that mistake once.

-Give the girls a bath. It's like a playpen. The fewer toys in there the better. Just give them a couple of measuring cups and a washcloth and you've got a half hour of fun. Sometimes I dangle my feet in the tub and let them give me a foot massage. Brilliant, eh?

-Get fancy like Nancy. My mom (Nancy) used to be a makeup lady so I have a ton of old free cosmetics samples from her. This is a mess, of course, so you have to be in the right mood.

-Play school. Bo loves to "read" to her little sister. And boss her around.

OK, none of that was rocket science, but it helps us make the days fun. Care to add to the list? Let's get some ideas rolling.

For the record, we do watch TV here, especially during the cold months. We have one TV. It's in the basement, so have to make a bit of an effort to watch it. I wish I could say we're TV free. I think a child's imagination can be stymied when they're constantly fed images instead of being forced to come up with those pictures themselves after reading a book or listening to a parent tell a story. But TV--especially movies--can be fun. And it can buy me three of those five miles on the treadmill.

On a related note, one project they did today was to make Christmas cards for 10 kids around the world. We're going to take part in Kids Craft Weekly's annual card swap, where you send a handmade card to 10 children and receive 10 cards from 10 different kids from all over the globe. 

I figured we'd better make the cards before signing up since I'm kind of famous for not sending cards to people I actually know. It's always my New Year's resolution to be better about that. Maybe 2010 will be the year I set out a stack of stamped envelopes on the kitchen counter and make it a habit. 

Here are a few of the girls' creations:

That's a reindeer on the right and a pissy post-op snowman in the middle. 

Speaking of Kids Craft Weekly, I bought Amber's Christmas Crafts and Christmas Cards e-booklets last week. I love everything she does. Her projects are based in reality. I love that my kids can look at her examples and not feel like total failures because their crafts don't turn out like something you'd see in a Martha Stewart magazine, as is clearly demonstrated by the photo above.

Birthday party planning and other tidbits

I'm knee deep in a work project right now. Did I say knee? I meant neck. It's time consuming but fun, and I'll tell y'all about in a few days.

Deadlines aren't what they used to be, though. When I worked full time for newspapers I used to thrive on knowing a story had to be filed by 9 p.m. After being wherever I had to be to cover the news, I'd have half the thing written in my head by the time I got back to my desk. And if I didn't, I was in trouble.

Everything changes with kids, though, especially when you work from home. Except when the girls are at preschool, there's never a guarantee that I'll have time to focus on what I'm doing and get it done by the time my editors need it. That uncertainty is more stressful than any breaking news ever was.

A phrase we seem to keep repeating around here is "It is what it is." In other words, quit complaining. Be grateful for the fascinating careers/assignments/life we have. Get it done. And move on. 

But here's a phrase I came across tonight--on Sarah Jane Studio's blog--that I like much better:

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." -Thomas S. Manson

I wish that had been in my head last night as I was frantically trying to get the dishes done before bedtime while Magpie was crying and tugging on my leg, begging for my attention. Instead of turning off the water, parking my rear on the floor and loving her up, I scrubbed those pots clean like a madwoman ... and eventually let all the noise turn me into, well, a mad woman. 

Ridiculous. I'm not advocating being at kids' beck and call at all times (they need to learn patience, right?) but two minutes of quality time probably would have calmed her down and allowed me to finish the dishes in peace.

I read something once that said even if we do something we regret with our kids--even if it happened just a second ago--we have the option of changing our direction and taking a more positive route. In the next moment. Right then and there. Turn the corner. Don't look back. 

I don't know how that looks when your kids are older, but at 2 and 4, usually that means shifting gears from frustration to total silliness. Usually that comes naturally to me. Other times, the dishes win. Grrr ... moving on. 

I really just meant to pop on here to share a few tidbits:

-I'm getting a lot of hits right now on my pumpkin carving tutorial from last year. Just thought I'd post a link to it here to make it easier for newbies to find.

-Everybody and their brother also seems to want to bake an owl cake right now (based on Google searches that find their way to Penny Carnival). You can read about my adventures with owl cakes here and here.

-At some point, I'm going to have to start planning Magpie's second birthday party. The original idea was to make it a parade-themed party, which was inspired by these invitations I ordered. 

Aren't they adorable? They're even cuter in person, with their sweet little rounded corners and all.

But the weather has become downright frigid here, so I'm not sure I want to subject a bunch of kids to a late-October prance around the neighborhood. I think I'll save the invitations for Bo's July birthday, since she's the one who's been begging for a neighborhood parade anyway. A parade party could be so much fun--tell the kids to bring their bikes/strollers/wagons, have a stash of streamers and flags they can use to decorate their rides, do the parade thing (inviting neighbors to cheer them on), then come back to the house and serve a long, skinny cake that's frosted to look like a street. 

So I'm working on a Plan B now. Little Red Riding Hood birthday party? Three Little Bears? Alice in Wonderland tea party? Vintage circus? Hedgehogs? Mary Had a Little Lamb? OK, I need to have more kids so I can fulfill all my toddler birthday fantasies.
Update: I just want to acknowledge that I realize the birthday theme should be all about what the kid wants, but Magpie is at an age where everything is awesome to her. "Do you like moldy bread?" "I like mo-wee bed." "Do you like Brussel sprouts?" "I like bussybouts." 

Other things I'm loving right now:

-This idea for thank-you cards (just in time!)

-A work-in-progress by Anna Maria Horner. I will never get tired of rainbows.

-A lovely white dress

-and Art Nest Studio's (a.k.a. Susannah, the highly talented portrait artist) fawn softie pattern. Oooh ... another birthday theme possibility. Those could be the favors!

Repurposing a quilt top, this little piggy, and my sweet Bo

It has taken me 10 minutes to start typing this post because my hands are busy feeding my mouth a big hunk of bread that just came out of the oven. I would like to tell you that it's some earthy, nutty, whole wheaty bread, but it's not. It's white sandwich bread, made with overly processed flour. There's butter melting on top of it. And I'm in heaven.

First, congratulations to my friends Carolyn and Scott and their daughter Joey, who welcomed baby Julian into the world today. I always get weepy when that much-anticipated e-mail comes (or Facebook update, I should say. E-mail seems so old fashioned now, doesn't it?). Good work, Mama. Now cuddle up with your little bundle and get some rest.

I have a partial update from Saturday's trash-to-treasure presentation. As a reminder, the newspaper gave me $25 to buy some junk at the big indoor yard sale they host, and then I had 24 hours to come up with a plan to repurpose it. Then, in front of a (very small) audience, I transformed it.

One of the items I bought--for $5--was a quilt top. I don't think I'm going to win any points for creativity here, but I basically just used it like I'd use any fabric and turned it into an Emmeline apron:

This was the last project I did at the show because I knew it would take a while, so I sent the audience off to do more shopping while I sewed it up. They came back at the end (well, some of them did) to see the result.

Thanks again for everyone's encouragement before the show. It went fine. Later this week, I'll show you what I did with wooden alphabet blocks, an old picture frame, and a soda-bottle crate.

Now, shifting gears ... to poverty.

There have been a couple of pivotal moments in our 4-year-old daughter Bo's life. One was when she saw the Broadway production of "Annie" last winter. It's probably not P.C., but she still likes to don the Annie dress I made her and scrub the floors "like an orphan." Hmm ...

A second pivotal moment was when her beloved preschool teacher Miss Kathleen quit her job at the school to go back to social work, helping homeless women and children find permanent housing. Ever since then, Bo has been on the lookout for homeless people. She also sometimes asks me if Miss Kathleen has found a home for Annie yet. (After which I fruitlessly try to explain the difference between fiction and reality and then give up and assure her that Annie is with Daddy Warbucks now.)

Anyhow, on a more serious note, Bo's concerns about poverty--especially children without enough food to eat or without a place to live--has been growing. I asked her last week if she'd like to do something to help, and she said yes.

Together, we came up with a plan: she's going to make crafts that she'll sell at a local farmers' market and then donate the money to a crisis nursery here in town. So between now and Oct. 10, the date of her sale, we'll be stocking up on crafty-kid inventory.

She got started tonight with a project I've eyed for months now.

Presenting Bo's very first papier mache pig puppet:

 

(Turns out an empty thread spool makes a great snout.)

The little pig is drying now, and tomorrow he'll get a coat of paint and something to wear.

I'm sure we've all read articles about kids doing good things for charity, like donating their birthday gifts to a cause. I love seeing that, but I have to admit I've always been skeptical about how much the parents are pushing it rather than it coming from the kid. Not that it'd be a bad thing that they're pushing them to do. On the contrary. It's just the pushing I don't like--or the assumption of pushing, since it's just the cynic in me that questions the kids' motivation.

But I can tell you this crafting project of Bo's is coming straight from her heart. It's the first thing she talks about in the morning and the last thing she says at night ("are we going to help the people tomorrow?"). I'll never question those feel-good articles again.

It's enough to warm a mama's heart. 

Bread warms up other parts of me. One more slice before bedtime ...

Making time for music

I (heart) routine.

We are back in a lovely rhythm here, and it's doing us all some good. 

Morning: breakfast, coloring or simple crafts, dressed and out the door

9-1: preschool/day care for both girls. They come home with full bellies and I have 3.5 hours dedicated to work. That means, when the girls are back, I'm not constantly checking e-mails or trying to make quick phone calls (that never goes well). I can just focus on them.

On the drive home from school, there's a small treat waiting for them on their car seats.

1-1:45 or so: music! Oh, how I wished I played the guitar. Or the piano. Or anything. I gave up cello in the 10th grade. Was never very good at it anyway. Still, I've always tried to make music a big part of our lives.

When Bo was a baby, I sang to her constantly. At one point, J made the comment, "She's going to be really disappointed when she finds out life isn't a musical." I'm not a great singer, but I don't care.

I'd love to put the girls in Music Together classes, but they're so dang expensive.

So what we're doing lately is this: throw some blankets on the living room floor (we don't have a rug), pull out our basket o' instruments (tambourine, kazoo, harmonica, blocks, maracas), and dink around with them while something plays on the stereo in the background. The girls are loving Peter Yarrow's songbooks right now. I'm partial to Elizabeth Mitchell's "You Are My Little Bird" album.

Tutus are a must, of course:

And when the action slows down or moves to the couch, I know it's time for naps.

Does anyone else do something similar? Any other tips on how to make music with kids, especially for those of us who don't have the skillz?

After naps, I try to have some sort of craft or learning activity out and ready, in the hopes that this will be a precursor to homework time one day. And in the hopes that I'll be able to make dinner while they're preoccupied, but at some point (usually when they see me pull out the food processor) they always slide their little chairs up to the counter to "help."

Eat dinner. Go to the gym. Play outside (September has been absolutely gorgeous here). Sleep.

On a completely different topic, has anyone seen the October cover of Martha Stewart Living? It's not my favorite October issue ever, but the pumpkin "mushrooms" are awesome. 

Speaking of my magazine addiction, Cookie came in the mail today so I'm going to excuse myself now to read about "39 family vacations I'll never forget" (but probably can't afford) and find out if "acupuncture can save my sex life." (Kidding, J. Just reading the teasers on the cover.)

Our Swedes and our ABCs

We just wrapped up a week with guests from Sweden in our house. I wanted to put the word "wonderful" in there before "week," but in classic Megan style I ended up catching some sort of cold/stomach bug by Day 3 and was out of commission for most of the visit. 

Ugh. It all had started so strong. We set off on a 2-hour drive to pick them up at a lake cabin in a remote part of northeast Washington Monday night. 

"It's time to go get our Swedes," I announced to the girls cheerfully. 

"Are we going to put them in the ground and watch them grow?" Bo asked.

"Swedes, honey. Not seeds."

When Bruno and Iris greeted us with warm hugs, I knew in an instant it would be a good week.

On Tuesday morning, I made quiche and pumpkin muffins and set out an array of teas and coffee for breakfast. That night, J and I cooked up a feast for 10 that included this butternut squash pasta, this bleu cheese dip and this apple cake for dessert, as well as some rosemary chicken, fennel sausage and other yum. We have failed miserably at dinner parties before, but we seriously hit it out of the park with that one.

The food was meant to be Northwest and autumnish, but the company was truly international: 2 Swedes, 1 Dutch woman, 1 Canadian and 5 gringos. It was a mix of neighbors and friends, and they hit it off beautifully.

But by Wednesday afternoon, my head was in the toilet. And, no, it wasn't food poisoning (thank goodness).

Our kind guests were completely understanding and they thankfully felt comfortable enough to help themselves to what they needed. But I couldn't help but think that they must have worried that they'd walked into Swine Flu Central. (Despite the fact that eastern Washington is ground zero for swine flu right now, I don't have it. Again, thank goodness.)

But during the times I was coherent this week, I witnessed moments of intercultural, intergenerational beauty.

We'd never met Bruno and Iris before. They were part of a "Friendship Exchange" through one of the local Rotary Clubs, which J volunteers for. They probably assumed they'd be staying with a retired couple like themselves, perhaps not with two 35 year olds and their young, er, energetic daughters. 

But it didn't take long to see that Bruno and Iris love children--they have six grandchildren of their own--and my heart swelled when Iris put Bo on the kitchen counter on night 2 and sang a Swedish nursery rhyme to her. (Something about a mouse looking for a house. The mouse creeps up the child's leg and finally finds its house in her tummy. Giggles galore.)

We talked with them about history and war and the environment and immigration and health care and taxes and about the unbelievable polarization that's happening in this country right now. (Seriously. A day doesn't go by when my jaw doesn't drop open as I read the paper. And I'm a journalist, for Pete's sake! Nothing should surprise me by now, right?)

So, yeah, it was a bummer that I got sick. But besides going to a foreign country and staying with a family there, I don't think there's a better way to expose ourselves to another culture than inviting people into our home. It's important to me that the girls grow up knowing that their way of life isn't the only way of life.

We jokingly referred to Bruno and Iris as "our" Swedes all week. But, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, in some ways that's true. We now have a small connection to a country we've never visited, except vicariously while wandering the aisles of Ikea.

I've been thinking of making a table runner I would applique over the years with small symbols of our voyages and of folks who visit us (like a Swedish flag and a reindeer for Bruno and Iris). I mentioned this to my friend Klay and she suggested starting a signature tablecloth, like this one. I plan to get some hybrid of those ideas going soon.

We're back to normal life now, and here's a little activity I did with Bo this afternoon to 

help her recognize words and,

more importantly, to remind her where to put her clothes away. 

I cut out letters as she ran back and forth to her room to come up with things we needed to label, like her sock drawer, her pajama drawer, her zebra and her duck. Of course.

Then she glued them to the background paper.

As you can see I probably should have coached her a bit more on the order of the letters, but she'll figure it out one day.

And finally, a visual report from our garden. This was tonight's bounty. The white tomato is courtesy of our youngest and most eager gardener, Magpie.

Ice cream social

Farm girl MaryJaneButters had a blog post the other day about how to organize an old-fashioned ice cream social. You guys know I'm a sucker for anything that builds community, so you know that kind of thing is right up my alley. But what kept lingering in my head after reading the post? Duh. A craving for ice cream.

The girls and I solved that tonight with a trip to The Scoop, a local shop that makes its own cold stuff. We always have to opt for "the kind that doesn't hurt our tummies," as Bo always tells the workers, so our order was 3 grape sorbets on sugar cones. Delish.

Fingers work just as well, apparently:

I knew we needed to linger a while because J was home sleeping (we're working our way through a case of the icks), so I brought along our felt pencil rolls and some paper.

We parked ourselves at a kid-sized wooden picnic table (easier for some of us to maneuver than others) and colored away.

Bo wanted to hang the signs on the shop's bike rack just to remind folks that they sell ice cream inside, but alas we had no tape ...

... She thought maybe curling the paper onto the bike rack would work. When it didn't, she moved on to twirling around in her rainbow dress on the lawn.

By the way, that beauty is NOT my bike. Too bad, huh?

We were there for so long that Bo built up the courage to ask two other sisters if they wanted to play with her. She's not shy, but she gets nervous about that sort of thing. The girls were thrilled and they played for all of 30 seconds until their mom announced it was time to go. I could just tell she wasn't one of those moms who likes to socialize, and that's fine, but I felt bad for Bo. 

The pencil rolls got me thinking about Amanda Soule and how her new book is coming out tomorrow. I should have pre-ordered--I would have had it by now--but the anticipation of going into a bookstore and flipping through the pages for the first time is fun, too.

Not that I have any time to follow her projects quite yet. I'm still swamped with writing deadlines and other responsibilities, including filling a few orders for book slings in my Etsy shop. By the way, I officially have a cottage license to make and sell Emmeline aprons now! I'm going to stock the shop with some once I get a chance, but for now I have a listing there for custom ones.

Are you ever so tired your stomach hurts? Ugh. Can't blame it on the sorbet, so it must be time to sleep.

Back to reality

Good golly. I can't believe more than two weeks have passed since I last posted something here. I think that's a record. Not a Michael Phelps sort of record (as in, yea! good for him!). A Takeru Kobayashi sort of record (as in, UGH!).

We got back to town last night after two weeks of laughing and eating waaaaay too much food with the Italian side of the family across the state. It was a great trip, but we all were happy to sleep in our own beds last night. 

Before I had kids, I had a healthy case of wanderlust. I wasn't a frequent flier by any means, but I've been to Costa Rica and Italy and I tended to move every couple of years. If I wasn't hopping cities (Portland, Ore., Boston, Mass., Spokane), I was moving to a different apartment across town. I loved change.

I still do, but ever since the babies came along I've had little desire to travel far and wide. Now I crave routine and simplicity and it might be to a fault.

The kids do great when we travel. Even on the six-hour drive home yesterday, they were fantastic, with Bo making up stories about princesses and her dead dog Cronkite (r.i.p., sweet doggie) in my car and Magpie reciting every word she knows in J's car (J had to work so he couldn't stay as long as we did).

The first couple of nights in a new bed are always a bit rocky, but any battles at bedtime are usually more my fault than theirs (i.e., trying to get them down at our regular times rather than easing up a bit). 

Going away is always worth it, but our itinerary here at home today reinforced my love of our quiet little lifestyle in Spokane.

On our agenda today:

-Run through the sprinkler (I felt a bit guilty after just visiting a town with watering restrictions, but it's super hot here right now so it was either crank up the A/C and stay inside or hose off the kids on the lawn).

-Hang wet clothes on the clothesline. The girls can't get enough of this.

-Do "magic" tricks, i.e., put a wine cork under a cup, shuffle the cup around with two other cups, make the kids guess which cup holds the cork. More endless fun.

-Make edible play dough (1 part honey, two parts peanut butter, 3 parts powdered sugar), cut out cookie shapes, bake it at 200 for a long time. This last one is doing nothing for my attempts at weight loss (I'm eyeing the leftover "cookies" across the kitchen right now), but as you can see the girls were captivated:

I didn't get a good shot of this, but is there anything better than seeing your child wearing your Nana's old aprons?

The day wasn't perfect. At one point, I had to put Bo's toys in time out. ALL of her toys. Seriously. But setting boundaries is just part of our routine, too. Besides, it took her all of 30 seconds to turn a washcloth, a baby blanket and her little sister into toys that weren't off limits. I don't know what that says about my attempt at discipline, but by that point I sort of forgot why she was in trouble.

Lots of crafting is on the horizon. I've sold a couple more book slings, so I'll be putting those together this week. And more inquiries are coming in!

Meg McElwee over at Sew Liberated has approved me to make and sell her Emmeline aprons, so I'm going to fill my Etsy shop with those as soon as I get through some other deadlines. Thanks again for everyone's encouragement on that!

And later in August I'm running a "make-and-take" craft booth at a local county fair (it's part of my role with the newspaper's Down to Earth blog). I'll be sure to share the four projects I'm doing with folks here.

Busy, but fun. Simple, but fulfilling.

Hope you all are well, too.

Neighborly love

I don't care if you live next to Fred Friggin' Rogers, nobody has better neighbors than us. 

We were a little gun shy on the neighbor thing when we first moved to this house two years ago. Without going into detail--because who knows who's reading this blog--we didn't have much luck picking good neighbors in the past. (Picture a cuckoo clock. See the crazy little bird that jumps out every hour on the hour? Now imagine living in the clock next door.)

So when S & G, the retired couple who lives across the street from us now, rolled out the welcome wagon two years ago, we hesitated to get to know them too well. 

Bo, however, did not. Thanks to her effervescent (read: pushy) personality, we had no choice but to become friends with S & G. At age 2, she would stand in our front window and scream S's name when she saw her, waving madly until S came over to say hi. 

And we now thank Bo every day for building that relationship.

S & G have helped us countless times, from snow blowing our driveway to lending us a car when ours didn't work to jump starting our car on more than one occasion to looking after our pooch (rest in peace, sweet Cronkite) while we were away. They call to let us know when we've left our garage door open at night. They bring the girls gifts from the far away places they visit.

One time we pulled up to our house and this sheep, plus two similar friends, were sticking out of the grass greeting us:

S used to own a bed and breakfast, and these were left over from the little shop she ran out of the house.

More than anything, though, they're just fantastic people. We tried once to thank one of their kind gestures with a gift certificate to a nearby restaurant. Instead of using it on themselves, they took us out to brunch with it and insisted on no thank-you gifts from then on.

Except cookies. G isn't afraid to hint that he has a sweet tooth, so if I'm making a batch, I double it whenever possible. 

Today, it was oatmeal M&M cookies. Peanut M&Ms, mind you. Try it. They're way better than when you use plain.

We had a few minutes, so I sewed an elasticized dish cover to go over the cookies. It's one of my favorite projects from the Farm Chicks' cooking and craft book. 

We've been spending more time in our front yard than our backyard lately. Not just because of S & G, although they're part of it. A family with two young boys just moved in next door, adding a lot of life to our street. It's sweet to see the four kids run back and forth between our two yards or cruise on their bikes and trikes around our circular driveway. The boys' mom keeps apologizing for her sons coming over so much, but I am honestly thrilled. The laughter. The shrieks. The conversations that start across the street or across a lawn until one neighbor or the other decides it'll be easier to talk in one driveway instead of from two.

It's how a neighborhood should sound.

Forever in peace may she wave

I only had a chance to photograph one of my Farm Chicks treasures today, so the others will have to trickle onto the blog as the week progresses. But to start things off ...

Farm Chicks Find No. 1: A 48-star American flag for $40.

The stars and stripes are sewn on, by the way, not printed. 

Pardon the exposed hardware in the middle there. For now, I just draped the flag on nails already in the wall. And if you live in either Alaska or Hawaii, sorry. Forty-eight stars just looks so much cooler than 50.

I once saw an apartment in Elle Decor or some similar magazine that was completely bedecked in vintage American flags. It was one of the most unique and striking homes I'd ever seen featured in a magazine. The article popped into my head Saturday as I dug through a couple dozen old flags for sale by a vendor at the show.

So, sure, this is supposed to be an "art" statement, I guess. Or a decor statement, anyway. But people are often surprised to find out how patriotic I am. That's right. I usually cry during the National Anthem. 

I think most folks assume all journalists are shady, cynical creatures always on the prowl to uncover some government scandal. I would never define myself as cynical, though. Skeptical, yes. Not cynical. And most journalists I know are in the field because they're dedicated to things like honesty, keeping an accurate record of history, and exposing what's wrong in the world so that ignorance is diminished and solutions might be found. No one I know has ever shouted "gotchya!" after uncovering something damaging about another human being.

I believe that journalism is one of the most patriotic professions one can enter, actually. Without the "fourth estate"--the watchdog that sometimes has to play an unpopular role to expose truths that might make us squirm--there can't be democracy.

Maybe Thomas Jefferson said it best:

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Ironically, that quote is carved into a wall at the Seattle Post Intelligencer offices--a newspaper that ceased its print publication a few months ago due to financial problems. Journalism jobs are fading and morphing at an alarming rate. In fact, it's probably more accurate to call myself a writer these days than a reporter since most of my work isn't for the editorial pages of the paper lately.

But I love journalism and I love this country, and I don't for a second think that is a contradiction. 

OK. Pardon me as I step off my soapbox. 

In more crafty news ... I'm still on an apron kick, sewing some up for friends and preschool teachers as time allows. I also have an idea for a new apron design brewing after being inspired by something I saw at the Farm Chicks show. Stay tuned.

Otherwise, please enjoy the brilliance that abounds elsewhere on the Web:

-Amy Karol's greeting cards made from the funny things her kids say. We keep a running list of the goofy observations our girls make, too, so I can't wait to put the hilarity to use like Amy has. For example, Bo said this one day:

"When I was a little girl, my heart got broken. But it got better when sissy hugged me and we got married."

Bo, 3 1/2

-Have I mentioned this little shop yet? I think so, but it's worth repeating for your baking pleasure. Every person must have a stash of red-and-white baker's twine and some brown boxes on hand for packing up treats for friends and neighbors, don't you think?

 

-The illustrations and captions in the vintage health book that Denise Sharp bought for $1 recently. I want to embroider every page! 

-All the great kid-crafty ideas on this Web site I stumbled upon recently, including making ginormous pencils. A lot of the activities will have to wait until they get older, but the girls would get a kick out of making mondo pencils. We did something similar in art class when I was in middle school, but you could pick the object you enlarged. I chose a record album. The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. I was sooo tragic.

-The Parents Journal podcast by Bobbi Conner. You have to get past the cheesy theme music, but the messages are usually very interesting and practical. One topic she likes to address is the benefits of no or very little TV. It's always good to play her program when I'm tempted to drag out the Dora DVDs.

-Photojojo's links to photos you can use for free, as well as ideas on what to do with them.

This image reminds me of my original idea for a theme for Bo's nursery before she was born: "vintage swim."

I'd still love to do that one day, but I doubt the girls would be on board with it yet. And soon enough they'll have their own ideas, anyway. How cool would it be to paint the walls aqua, frame some vintage swimsuits in shadow boxes, and display funky old swim caps, though?

-The Crafty Crow's roundup of ideas for making seed markers with kids, found via Kids Craft Weekly. Monkey Lobster's project is my favorite:

 

-And this poster about how to build community, brought to my attention by my friend Nis.

As I said on my other blog:

I’m pretty good at a lot of those tips, but there are many ideas there that I should be using as guide to life. Some of my favorite suggestions from the list are “fix it even if you didn’t break it,” “bake extra and share,” “sit on your stoop” (my family has been doing this a lot more lately), “know your neighbors,” and “start a tradition.” “Turn off your TV” is easy for me, but if I buy the poster I might have to scratch out the word “TV” and replace it with “Internet” just to really challenge myself.

You can learn where to buy your own copy of the poster here.

Choosing fun

I wasn't going to write a post tonight. There wasn't anything particularly interesting about our day today. I sewed up a book sling for a new friend. (It was in exchange for a one-hour massage by her. How lucky am I??? Those of you who keep saying, "I wish I knew how to sew ..." Take a class! It pays off!). I did some meal planning (more on that topic one day soon). And I made pumpkin muffins with Magpie in the morning.

So who cares, right?

Well, I just came from Emily Chadwick's blog and she made me think today might be more significant than I thought. 

Instead of letting her two little ones get the best of her today, Emily turned a frustrating car ride into an adventure in rhubarb. Instead of just getting everyone home and making it through the day, she stopped at a farm stand near her house and let her kids see her go bonkers for the red veg. They brought some home, found a recipe to follow, and made something yummy together. You can read all about it here.

I try not to write much here about the tough days in parenting. We've all been there (right? please say I'm not the only one who loses my mind now and then). You don't need me rehashing a bad day and bringing everyone down. Unless, of course, it leads to a Penny Carnival group vacation to Canyon Ranch. Oh my--doesn't that sound nice right about now?

For whatever reason, I've had my fair share of rough patches in the last couple of weeks. I was kind of spiraling down into grumpy mommyhood until I snapped myself out of it the other day. I had to remind myself of something I fundamentally believe: with any relationship, the answer to challenges is more love, not less. (At least, that's what the Dixie Chicks tell me.) More kisses. More hugs. More compliments.

And more fun.

It's not fool proof, but so far this is what it has meant for us this week:

Fewer errands, more stops at the playground. Less cleaning, more dancing to ABBA songs. Later bedtimes (within reason). And more spontaneous tea parties at the fanciest hotel in town (the wait staff at our local landmark was more than happy to serve Shirley Temples in teacups the other day, and they didn't bat an eye at the eye shadow and blush smeared all over my daughters' faces). 

Today's fun? Bo and I decided to bake a cake, and baking a cake turned into throwing a small birthday party. But whose birthday was it today? I told her I'd look online. Jerry Seinfeld. She gave me a blank stare. So I suggested throwing a birthday for a thing instead of a person, like how about for our house? She had never heard anything so ridiculous. 

We looked around her room and settled on a character from a book. Little Red Riding Hood was the first thing she grabbed.

Is today really Little Red's birthday? I guess that depends. If one person in the universe believes it is, doesn't that make it so?

Here's to choosing fun. Here's to rhubarb!