the girl who has a mind reader

Tio Sabi is missing some money.

That really doesn't surprise me as he can be prone to be, ah, scatterbrained (to put it kindly) about his personal (and other people's personal) possessions. I think its likely he spent it and forgot about it.

However, as things go in this household, when something is missing, we go to the kiddos.

"Boys, did any of you pick up a $10 bill you may have found laying around?"

Solemn faces, "no."

Ok, fair enough. We asked, they answered, my mom alarm didn't go off, so they are in the clear. (and, like most moms, I can tell when they are lying. They're pretty terrible at it.)

However, Ian has become my little story teller. He likes to participate in conversations by claiming he has performed the activity being discussed or owns the item currently being spoken of, or is "best friends" with whomever the conversation is about. He does it with a perfectly straight face. He is a classic "one-upper."

So, after the quick little mass interogation, he comes into the room, slides onto Tio Sabi's lap and lays this one on us:

"Sabi, Zacky took your money. I hear his mind say so."

the girl who has a warning

If you decide to decorate cupcakes with green frosting
and if you use the remainder of the tube of gel coloring
and if you throw that away and it misses the trashcan
and if your toddler picks it up off the floor and (unbeknownst to you) sucks it dry
and if you find the now completely empty tube on the floor of the living room with no idea of how it got there

then


don't be surprised
alarmed
or intimidated

by the florescent green diaper that said toddler gives you the next morning

and

if you use your powers of deduction
when the color starts bleeding out of the poop stuck on his leg and tints the bathwater a sickly green

you just might figure out what happens

when you decide to decorate cupcakes with green frosting.


(no pictures. I thought about it, but decided not to inflict that upon my very very few readers!)

the girl who is catching up

so..since my last post I've

straightened my hair (temporarily)

made Breakfast for dinner on April Fool's Day

Met up with an old friend and her kids

taught some classes at the Scrappy Store

scrapped a little for myself

discovered Lomo and all of its yumminess

Gone to the Celebration Art Festival and, feeling artistic myself, took a bunch of pictures.

and not found a job

Don't know how much longer my landlord will be understanding, but I'm crossing my fingers the employment drought will end soon.

Quotes from the boys:

"Mommy, the school bus ride was AWESOME!"
(matthew)

"I am the Master Prankster!"
(Zachary)

"I'm making costumes."
(Ian, my little dress-up guy)

"This?"
(Eli's favorite new word)

the girl who is wishing Princess a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday Princess! You are my mentor, my guru, my scrapping buddy and my friend. I think Jen Jen said it best when she said, "Happy Bday to the bestest boa wearin, tiara totin', F-U page scrappin, hair flippin, hairball throwin, shovel sister a girl could have! Love you Princess!!" That's pretty much all of our private jokes rolled up into one declarative sentence!

It can't be repeated enough, Love ya Princess!

the girl who is teaching a class

Coming soon to Piktails Scrapbook Store in Orlando, this Mixed Media Mini Album, taught by yours truly.

We will learn some painting techniques (crackle, dry brushing and stenciling), work with TONS of glitter, do a little dry embossing, and have tons of messy fun. This book incorporates chipboard, sheer acetate, acrylic, corrugated cardboard, and paper pages with surprises! We'll make a pocket page, envelope page and fold out page. This album incorporates 2x2, 3x3, 3 1/2 x 5, and 4x6 pictures. There is room for a minimum of 25 pictures in this album!

I chose a bright, Spring, color scheme for this album so you could customize it for your Easter, baby, family, or Spring pictures. Would make a great gift for a baby shower, mother's day or birthday.

Call Debbie at Piktails to sign up, but HURRY. Because of all the techniques, we are limiting this class to 15 members.

the girl who feels unmotivated

I have reached the doldrums. the blahs. the "meh" mentality. And I'm not quite sure what is worse...being in this particular mental state, or recognizing I'm here and still not doing much about it.

I have been unemployed for two months now. Two Months! I don't like it. I enjoy the ordered structure of having a schedule, having meetings, tasks that need to be completed: in short, having a job to do. I have tried, oh so desperately tried, to establish that same sense of order on my personal life, but it just isn't happening. I don't understand why I can't order and schedule and break my home life up into manageable chunks, but the dynamic is completely different.

What inevitably happens is that I maintain for a little while and then, suddenly it seems, it all goes to pot at the same time, I look around and see just too much to do at once and I shut down and enter the stage of "meh."

Example:


This is my loveseat. It is covered with a week's worth of washing. I feel like I just cleared this off, I turn around and its full again.


This is the surface of my furniture. It is filled, not only with thoughtful, decorative knick-knacks and family pictures, but all of the STUFF I pick up off of the floor, set down "just for a minute" or liberate from a toddler and set up out of his reach.


This is said toddler. The activity for the morning while I *try* to muster up the motivation to take care of Mount Washmore, is for his older brothers to put him in the back of this Tonka dumptruck and push him--SQUEALING at the top of his lungs--up and down the only clear pathway in the house. I'm sobbing a bit inside because I took him to get his curls trimmed last weekend and now he just isn't as curly anymore. I want to send the boys outside to play to get out of my way, but two of them are grounded. It's funny, I was just giving my humble advice to a friend this past week where I advised her to look for punishments for her child that didn't punish her as well and here I go, locking my two most active kids into this nightmare of a house with me. I'm a dolt.

So what HAVE I been doing with all of my freetime these days, you might ask?

Well, I've certainly caught up on my reading. Thanks to Book Mooch and Paperback Swap I have a ton of new books in the house. I've started reading Nora Roberts novels, FSM help me. They are addictive pieces of fluff. Well written pieces of fluff, but nothing but entertainment that doesn't require a whole bunch of thought. Addictive too BECAUSE they are well written. I get completely caught up in the story and end up with a perfect excuse to be unmotivated.

I have not been scrapping as much as I would like to think I would be. I did finish this lo at Island Jen's Craft Love Fest last weekend.


One lo. That's it.

But I have been working on a minibook class for Piktails, my local LSS. The sample is nearly complete and I'll have to start organizing my anal retentive instructions for the actual class. Here's a preview of the materials.


And I've been visiting friends, going out to lunch, and running errands for Larry and Judy. All of which keep me out of the house but don't go a long way to accomplishing anything about the mess.

So I am BEGGING for someone to leave me a hint, a clue, throw me a rope or SOMETHING. While I spend my time sending out resumes, making phone calls and trying to find a job...how do I get this personal life of mine into the same order as my professional life?

My friends laugh at my organizational needs. How I NEED to have things ordered, alphabetized, cross-referenced and filed. But WHY can I not transfer that same obsessive compulsive tendancies to my home life?

Help!

the girl who is wishing Island Jen a Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Island Jen! I couldn't find a pic of you on the laptop, so I stole one off of your flkr page. I love this one! Have a great one and I can't wait to see you tonight!