Monthly Archive

Who knew a Swiffer could be so much fun? My boys are running circles around the kitchen/dining/living room loop, chasing each other with the Swiffer, laughing, stomping and hooting, while periodically stopping to marvel, and insist I marvel, at the massive dust-bunnies they’ve accumulated.

Abby is toddling and wobbling around after them, as they continuously lap her, shreiking and giggling at the mayhem. She occasionally falls on her padded little bum, and picks herself immediately to rejoin the fun.

The windows are all thrown open to catch the cool breeze and damp air, remnants of a wild thunderstorm that blew through an hour ago. The edge is off the heat of the day, and the smell of honey, damp grass, sunlight, childhood and summer floats in the open panes.

On the kitchen counter sits a white enamel-ware bowl from the 30’s, filled to the brim with rosy, ripe cherries plucked from the tree in the kids’ great-aunt’s backyard. Just looking at it makes me happy. From lunch, Abby’s cheeks and fingers are stained with cherry-juice.

Happy summertime, indeed.

Parker’s concert is tomorrow- go check it out if you can, if you can’t, get a t-shirt, say a prayer, burn some sage, salute the sun, dance a circle, whatever it is you do, send it Parkers way. He needs it.

Recently, a good friend sat in my dining room and scolded me for not being able to gracefully receive a compliment. It’s true. I squirm, I deflect, and I feel so self-conscious I want to climb the walls when someone showers me with nice words.

There has been a whole lot of light and attention directed my way lately, mostly because of the flattering and unbeleivabley kind piece at Tales from the Crib, and again I find myself wanting to deflect attention and melt into the wallpaper.

My friend was right- she often is, and this is something I need to work on- but not today.

Thus, the same friend who scolded me about grace and compliments had a little wicked fun coming up with things I suck at- it was a blast! Here are a few; this is by no means a complete list!

1. Computers. Yes, I blog- and have for almost two years now, but I didn’t even own a computer until two years ago. My idea of fixing a problem with the mechanical little demon involves beatings with a shoe and lots of naughty words. As a matter of fact, just last week I realized I could play music on this thing! Did you know that? Apparently the entire western world knows that, but not me.
2. Gardening. Ugh. I hate it. Hate hate hate it. It probably doesn’t help that I’m allergic to the entire botanical encyclopedia, but there it is. My thumbs are black. What can I say. I hate itching, and sneezing, and I hate the endless-ness of gardening. I am plain bad at it. I have enough dirt in my life with 3 and 5 year old boys- no thanks.
3. Once upon a time, I took a pottery class, and try as I might, with all my might, I simply could NOT get the dang clay to spin into a bowl, cup, or anything remotely resembling a vessel of any kind. This ticked me off. While there are things I suck at, usually artistic things come easily- it really bothered me that I couldn’t do this. I still can’t.
4. My fuse is short, and burns hot. The only good thing is, it burns out quickly.
5. Delegating. Ugh. I would rather not be in charge of anything, because I cannot delegate. Let me just be the rank and file while someone else calls the shots, because if I have to be the boss, I will try and do it all. It’s not pretty.
6. Dancing. Oh, you have never seen anything so sad as me trying to keep a count and a tempo. It’s worse than Elaine. Really. I look at people who groove and move with grace and rhythm, and it’s like listening to someone talk Armenian. It’s pretty, but I have no idea how to make myself understand.
7. Music. Oh, holy craptastic, this is the bomber. Singing, music, rhythm, tempo, time… The Good Lord shortchanged me here. Even my three-year old asks me to stop singing in the car, and will actually cover his ears in church and yell at me to STOP! Yes, I am totally serious. Music I adore, but never, ever ask me to contribute. You will be sorry.

So there. What do you suck at?

It’s gonna be a good one! 

Heads up, everyone… This month, courtesy of TftCarrie, I will be the featured mama-business at Tales from the Crib- and coupled with the mini-bio business profile, there will be a great give-away of custom made Tracy M. artwork.

If you’re interested, head on over there and enter your name in the drawing. Thanks!

It’s done! It’s done! It’s done! And here it sits, the way I always imagined it could look, in my living room.  It was way more work than I first thought, but it was also totally worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears.  Remember, it was black- with stain, years of grime and neglect. It was so bad someone actually put it out for the trash… and now it’s a gem.

Now I need to get a piano repair guy in here to fix the broken hammers ( I have them all) and give her a good tuning, and we’ll all be able to start our piano lessons.

We had an Elder come over one night who sat down and banged out a smashing, if slightly off-tune, rendition of Rhapsody in Blue, so it shouldn’t be too hard to bring the old lady back into usable condition. Even if She never holds a tune, I will never get rid of my beauty.

Here is a side shot of the wood, so you can see what quarter-sawn tiger oak looks like… lovely.

If you have boy, or even a husband or brother or anyone of the male persuasion ((ok, even if you have a girl- we don’t need to pretend we aren’t just as fascinated (almost) about poop as the boys))- run, don’t walk, to Amazon and buy this book:

My kids have had more fun reading, re-reading and laughing their little bums off over all the seriously scientific facts you never knew you needed to know about poop.  It really is a cool collection of facts, and not at all potty-humor like some kids books about bodily functions. 

Consider these little factoids:

Did you know sharks poop in spirals? Did you know toilet manufacturers use fermented bean curd to test new toilets because it will, um, clog like the real thing? Did you know baby cockroaches can survive in times of famine by eating their parent’s poop? Beaver poop floats? Michealangelo rubbed donkey poop on some of his marble statues to make them look older?

See how much fun all that info is? How could you have made it through the day without knowing all that?

So that’s your book recommendation for the day- perhaps not my most intellectual choice, but certainly the most fun.

Now I’m off to work on the Beastly Piano some more….

Next project! Because I simply cannot not be doing something. Drives DH nuts. What can I say?

Anyway, right before DH and I were married, oh, eight years ago, we found this old piano out on the curb in my mom’s neighborhood. For the garbage. It took seven of us to push it back to my moms, but it’s been my piano ever since. I love it, despite my dear husband trying several times, in two moves, to put it back to the curb for the trashman, it has remained in our living room.

Until this move. I decided it’s finally time to fix the old beast up. Looking online, I found a great site on how to refurbish you antique piano, and have thus disassembled the beast and am in process of stripping over 100 years of varnish, grime and uck. The finish is the original, but the treasures I am finding as I strip it off are incredible.

It was stained an almost black-red, to mimic mahogany, the vogue wood of the turn of the century. Underneath all that darkness, is the most spectacular quarter-sawn red tiger oak you have ever seen. You cannot, at any price, get wood like this today. Beyond thrilled…

In the first shot, in my garage, you can see that I’ve taken it apart (I numbered the keys- let’s just keep Beanie away from them!) And below- just look at that harp- it’s dated 1889-Can you beleive someone actually put this out for the GARBAGE??

Got up at 5 a.m. to be alone before the kids woke, and I managed to finish.

The light is not great in the shot, as it was pre-dawn in my dining room, not the Golden Hour in my studio, but you get the idea…

Man, this totally rocks…! I had so much luck today- It’s already spread all over my house, but here is the take:

• A vintage freestanding wooden framed blackboard, with blackboard and tray on both sides so two kids can use it at once. It is also printed with darling vintage pigs and squirrels, and the alphabet in upper and lower case. On both sides. $5.00
• A totally vintage Royal typewriter, you know, the black kind that weigh a ton and have the keys with glass letters? Yup, one of those. The kids are having a ball on it already- for $3.00. Yes, that says three. It needs a ribbon.
• A lime green Japanese umbrella of really high quality and design. The boys are having a blast playing with it, but it’s so nice I may confiscate it, for $3.00
• A bundle of old brass picture frames with velvet backs and wavy glass, 25 cents.
• An enamel-ware basin, white with the red stripe on top, for $4.00
• An Acme old blue canning jar, with the glass lid intact. It’s  keeping my old creamery milk bottle company on the kitchen window sill… $1.00
• A large, antique wooden picture frame, $3.00
• A pile of hand crocheted doilies and cruelwork, $5.00
• Two vintage crochet-edge and embroidered pillow cases for Abby, $3.00
• A small basket
• A box of vintage Christmas tree hooks made in the USA, they are so flippin’ big and thick- for 5 cents
• And two books, Amy Tan’s “Saving Fish from Drowning” and that health book about You and being an owners manual. $2

The painting is coming along, too, with some changes. As soon as I get a little further, I will post another picture.

Used to be I would start and finish a painting in a single day. This is the progress after, what, four days? Ah, well. I’m very happy to be painting again.

Trying to paint with kids SUCKS!!! “Help” from a five, three and one year old makes me want to beat my head on a brick wall.

I have the picture ‘roughed’ in- which means it’s laid out and the blocks of color are indicated. Beanie took a pencil to the background and drew large, lovely swooping circles. Abby ate some paint, and Jeff, well he’s fascinated, which is fine, but is now complaining because he cannot draw what he wants the way I can. (This was something I tried to hide for a quite a while- He is very competitive, and I didn’t want him frustrated by his inability to replicate things. Now he wants me to draw everything for him, and won’t even try himself. Gaaaaaaa!)

I keep repeating the mantra of many stay-at-home mama’s: My life is not about me. My life is not about me. My life is not about me.

Now I remember why I stopped painting and started designing textiles. Ah, how short is the memory of a sleep deprived mama.

I feel like painting. I haven’t painted much since my kids were born, but I have this blank wall in my new dining area, and it’s screaming for something totally cool.

What I wanted for it was some old, weathered wooden barn sign or a vintage advertisement- but since vintage posters cost big bucks, I thought I might try and make my own coolness. So I went out to get a canvas. Canvas isn’t usually my medium- I paint on coldpress illustration board, most of the time, but I was looking for something about 48″ square, and that makes board impossible. But, you can stretch a canvas to any size you can build a frame- excellent! Until I saw how much a new canvas costs- holy smokes!! Over 100 bucks for the size I have in mind.

Not gonna happen…

So I went to Home Depot. I bought some 2″ square fence stringers, and found a piece of 1/8″ 4′ x 8′ birch plywood on the seconds rack. The wood guy was happy to rip the piece of plywood in two equal squares, so I left with two 4-foot square pannels, and enough 2×2 to frame them out- all for $8. Yes!

It was a little hard managing two pieces of plywood, eight stringers, a race-car cart, a 3 year old and a 13 month old. But I did it- and now my easel is set up and I am itching to paint.

If only some fairy would show up to feed, change, and entertain my kids. As I write, one of them is hanging on me begging for a snack, one just broke of the hot water handle in the bathroom, necessitating a call to DH to pick up a new faucet on the way home, and another is crying at me from the bedroom to put Boobah on…

Sure, I’m gonna paint.

This book is awesome. From the cover and the title onward, I am in love with this book. A few weeks ago on the radio, I heard an interview with the two author/brothers, Conn and Hal Iggulden, and have been looking for it ever since.

It seems, in our modern world of helmets on trycycles, knee-pads on crawling babies, outlet plugs and hand sanitizer, these two gentlemen came to the realizaion that something valuable was being lost. I have to agree. Putting my children at undue risk doesn’t interest me, but I have felt rather silly putting a helmet on my two year old as he rides around the backyard at a whopping 1/16 mile per hour.

There seems to be something inherently attractive about risk to those with a Y chromosome, and this book is a manual and encyclopedia of fascinating “boy” things. Now, to be fair, I would have LOVED this book as an 8-year old girl, too, and I love it as a grown woman and mother.

Consider some of the chapters:

• Making a Battery
• Five Knots Every Boy Should Know
• Timers and Tripwires
• Building a Treehouse
• Naval Flag Codes and Navajo Code Talkers
• First Aid
• The Golden Age of Piracy
• Secret Inks
• A Breif History of Artillery
• Pinhole Projectors
• The Game of Chess
• Books Every Boy Should Read

Seriously, wouldn’t you like to know some of those things? My husband’s eyes absolutely lit up as he flipped throught it last night… I could see the boy in him delighting in this pool of information.

We have decided, since Jeffrey is reading now, to just leave the book lying around, and let him find it and sound the words on the cover out for himself. He will discover a golden treasure of boyhood and manhood to follow… I can practically see his eyes lighting up, as he sounds out the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘for boys” on the cover of one single book. I wouldn’t dream of interfearing with that priceless discovery.

I can’t wait for him to find it…

Like many of us mama’s, I have been making the switch to Compact Fluorescent light bulbs. While I have not been sold on them actually lasting as long as the packages claim, and I’m not a fan of the sometimes blueish light they cast, I have made the move for the most part.

Now, I’m rethinking that move, and if you have kids, you might want to as well.

My husband was doing some poking around for information, and it seems there are some issues with Mercury and CF’s. Now, regular incandescent light-bulbs contribute to mercury in our environment through the burning of coal resources, however, when an incandescent bulb breaks, you simply have a glassy mess to contend with…

Not so with a CF. All CF bulbs actually contain mercury inside the tube, and upon breakage, toxic mercury gas is released into your home.  There are warnings on each package, and according to the EPA website, you should vacate the room, ventilate, double bag the shards, use rubber gloves and never use a vacuum to clean up the glass, as the vacuum will further disperse the mercury around the house, and your vacuum will be contaminated.  According to one Canadian website, you should have a professional come to your home and decontaminate the mercury residue. This is from one bulb breaking.

As with most issues, there is more than one side. Environmentalists claim the benefits of CF far outweighs the cost, and that they can be recycled at local recycling centers. I checked with our local station, and they only accept them twice a year. Your must then hold onto your little mercury-laden spent bulbs, hoping they don’t break, until the appropriate time to recycle.

The problem is- most folks don’t even know this much.

Thus, burnt-out bulbs are almost always tossed in the trash, contributing to tons of mercury being released from landfills- Far more than would be by incandescent bulbs.  And that doesn’t even address the issue of mercury vapor in our homes- and what we should do about it.

Mercury is linked to birth defects, spinal cord deformities, causes damage to the central nervous system, and is suspect in many other health issues.

As for me, I think I will still use them, but with great caution, and only in places my children cannot inadvertently break one and expose us all to toxic gas.

There were too many interesting articles, from different points of view, for me to link. Try using your search engine with “CF and Mercury” and see what comes up- quite informative.

That’s the soapbox for today.

Our new neighborhood has the BEST yard sales ever!! This morning, I took Jeffrey and we headed off to look at a chair I saw on Craigslist (got it, by the way, excellent buy). There were so many signs for yard sales, I decided stopping at a few would be a fine idea… and thus introduced Jeffrey to the wonderful world of “second hand”.

I got a children’s antique wooden rocking chair, perfect boy-size, painted red, for $5, a tiny antique folding table with the makers label still on the underside, also $5, a Carrom game board for $3, and an awesome huge antique wooden bankers desk, at which I now sit, for $35! Jeffrey found some Lego Bionicle toys for $2, and an old, real metal Erector Set for 25 cents. Yes, cents! 

He is totally sold on yard sales now, and can’t wait to go again. That’s my boy!

Oh, here is pretty much what our house looks like, by the way… only mirror-image, and the porch stops at the front, instead of wrapping around. I’m in heaven.