Birdie

http://www.zacandzoe.com/misc/zzonebird.html
See this? Why is it so expensive? i think I want to make some cutey little calico birds for decorations/toys and I might use these for inspiration. Cute, right? Rediculous what some people will pay for things.

So cute new blankies

I have a thing for winter-symbolism. Snowflakes, especially. Any time of the year, the darling and precious snowflake on a plate, a cup, a sweater, a hand towel, or a BLANKET, and I am just giddy. So adorable and appealing are the pictographic images that surround not necessarily Christmas, but winter, and I am just ga-ga.

So guess what I got? The yummiest, fluffy-puffiest, deep and warm and utterly GORGEOUS bedding set from Target last night! My sweet sweet people from the Friday night gang at work chipped in and got me a Target gift card--such an unexpected surprise, especially the nice thing they wrote in the card--sniff! sniff!-- and I high tailed it to the nearest Target and bought this fantastical thing. Comforter and 2 pillowcases. Flannel. Coolest color scheme. SO thick--did I even know I wanted a thick quilt, per se? Well, lemme tell ya this bed is SICK now, how it beckons me! I really cant even look in my room when I visit the bathroom oh so many times a day because like a magnet, this "new bed" SUCKS ME IN with its soft and fluffy beauty.

Thank you, sweet curling club Friday people, and thank you Target for selling something so high quality and gorgeous for $29.99. My bedroom is so glorious now, I am going to go jump in immediately! G'night! Off to puffyville!

Seasonal complaints

My whole family is drying up! They are thirsty and have the driest skin. I chase them around with lip balms and ice waters and bought super expensive cracked-skin cream. Arggg. We need a humidifier but I picture it not working and the little ones dumping it or drinking it or worse. Winter can be a pain. I like it, alot, in theory, but it is just a PAIN. In summer, it is hot and you always feel sticky and gross and flithy, but at least there isn't all this huge MAINTENANCE the second you wake up, you know? In winter, t is just so much WORK to feel like you have it together. It is the opposite of relaxed-island living.

I wake up and immediately I am FREEZING and have to put on a huge outfit. Long sleeved shirt, sweater, jeans, socks, shoes, and then run to go pee! My lips are split and I am super thirsty and cold. I cant bear the idea of going out to the kitchen shivering and tense, and all the household chores seem much harder. The kids don't want to get up, and when they do, they seem to always be barefoot and i pester them to get some socks on, NOW. I HATE seeing their little red feet with crumbs on them--- YUCK. I want everyone to be totally dressed, even down to shoes. I get uptight when it is cold. It is my parenting/protecting thing coming out. I feel much less tolerant of relaxed/lazy stuff and want hot meals to be eaten properly, at the table, and then cleaned. No summery treats all over the place. If my kids liked this stuff, it would be oatmeal for breakfast, soup for lunch, chili or stew or lasagna for dinner, cocoa for bedtime. Baths for all children, slather them all from head to toe in the expensive medical cream, pass around the chapstick, 4 sippy cups of ice water, and in footie pajamas asleep by 7:30pm. Too bad I'm never even home anymore at night.

So what is it about winter that I supposedly like? It is pretty. when we have what we need in the house, which feels like never, we can be cozy and safe. We can sled, in theory, but we don't get deep snow like we used to, and it is an ORDEAL to put it mildly. Maybe this year Steve can come with us--but we never have boots of our own, only the kids do....last year Charlie couldn't walk so I concluded that he was too little to sled so he stayed home with Daddy.

We could ice skate but we don't know how and it seems difficult/impossible to teach 4 kids to skate at the same time if i cant skate. This would be a good situation for a helping adult friend. We have an ice arena very close by....

In theory we could have jaunty laughing friends over for jaunty laughing hot drinks and movie nights....this one does sound quite good....

I like to wear big cozy clothes that make me feel cute and not like my lard is spraying out. Summer time is a gross time of armpits flying out and hyper leg hair maintenance and dry-spot-on-your-foot-shame marketing pressure and i resent all that. That stuff ruins summer. In winter I can wear my jeans and long sleeved t shirts and look cute and feel nice and protected, not like I am in some swimsuit competition everytime I go to the grocery store.

I like to cook and bake and have it be a good thing that the oven heats up the whole kitchen, not a torture fest.

I guess all I am actually trying to say is winter and summer suck and I like fall. Taking care of four children in extreme temperatures is much much harder than when it is nice out.

:)

Battling the brrr

Wow, did we ever get close to doing something rather hasty. We were --this close-- to moving just because we have some ideas about simple living and thought that we HAD to live in a tiny tiny cabin to live simply--and mostly, because our gas heating bills were so high last year and we thought with our big, old, inefficient furnace, and our long, big (for us) drafty house, there was no hope. But we can do simple living here, and we have made lots of strides in this area, even if all the work has been majorly curtailed by me working most nights, we are still on track. It costs about $2000 to move and we dont have it. Plus it is really really really alot of work to re-set up a home life. With little children, it is so much more than just unpacking stuff when you can. It is major disruption of schedules and lots of negative fallout as a result that takes months if not longer to recover from. Sounds kinda like a nightmare right now.

So here is my new stance on the heat-bill thing: The Man cant chase me from my home. Can I honestly say we did EVERYTHING we could last year to keep the bills their lowest? No.

The new plans:

We will discontinue all use of our "3 season room" which connects our driveway to our home. You can park in the driveway but then you have to come to the front door. There is no overnight parking on our street, so oh well. Walk 100 feet and get over it. (These mean words being directed at myself not my visitors!)

We will lock and put down blankets/towels in front of the door that leads to this room and will not go in there unless extremely necessary. For those of you who remember me saying it was going to be our homeschool gym, well, we just cant afford any play toys at all although we got a slide a few months ago, we can put it in the kids' bedroom and be "fun-parents" until spring.

We will put on the storm windows AND the blow-dryer plastic treatment on EVERY window in the house. We will put down rolled up blankets in front of every door that leads to the outside. We will lay down rugs and wear shoes and socks or slippers from the time we wake up until bedtime.

We are going to start using space heaters, as well. These are not dangerous as people are lead to believe, they are small and cheap and efficient and they all have no-tip sensors inside so they instantly turn off when and if they get knocked over. We only use 2 bedrooms for sleeping, so we could theoretically turn the heat OFF at night, or way down. Daddy gets up early to go to work and, like the olden times only much much easier, he could be the one to turn on/up the heat.

We could theoretically use 4 or 5 little space heaters at different times and not use gas heat hardly at all. I already use cold to wash clothes and we don't have a dishwasher. So it would be heating our baths and showers only, and somewhat our home. We are on a "payment plan" with the electric company anyhow, we pay $104 a month so we could use the electric space heaters without too much worry.

I think back to what people used to have to do in the mornings in the way of chopping wood out in the snow, using outhouses, milking freezing cows and goats, lighting fires, and I think we are wimpy pathetic people nowadays. I have no interest in "freezing" all day, nor wearing hats in the house or anything so sad or extreme. But with the money saved from not living the way we did last winter, we could definitely afford six pairs of slippers or a fireplace guard (we only do fires at night because Charlie can walk right into our fireplace, it is right at floor level.)

Thank you, Mom for helping us out last year when we got our gas bill for $800. It won't happen again!

Peeping tomgirl

Ahh, winter. Time for Cocoa, fireplaces, big cozy sweaters, and peeping into people's houses.

HUH???
;)

Yes, I am going to admit here that I LOVE it when people leave their window shades open when it is dark outside and they are home with lights on. Am I trying to see some family dispute, a torrid love scene, something titillating? Well, no-- unless, like me, you are completely enamored with home decor, which can be quite exciting!

It gets dark around 5pm now, and I drive to work around 5:30. My favorite part of the drive is seeing in all the houses! I am so intrigued by the paint colors, the furniture choices, the layout of the rooms, and the actual architecture of houses, it is a wonder I stay in my lane. I hope for red lights so I can look in and at the houses. I love the tiny houses that have upstairs. I love the Brady-Bunch "modern" slab houses with the funny little carports. I love the big old farmhouses, and I love to hate the random huge new-construction homes that pop up in the middle of modest streets and never seem to sell, forever vacant with their oversized garages and no yards and no lawns and no trees, and their for sale signs out front, eventually replaced by for lease signs. I love to see how many people have a television as the ONLY thing in their living rooms besides a recliner, and I love to see funky kitchens with brown or green refridgerators and a hundred pictures of grandkids on the walls interspersed with kitschy needlepoint blessings and half hearted collections of all kinds. I love the ugly houses that look like hip IKEA showrooms inside, and I love the gorgeous homes with nothing in them. I just love it all.

I always close my curtains, maybe because I am so keenly aware of how easy it is to see everything inside a lit up house when it is dark outside. I am not some sicko, just a very curious person who finds so much of human behavior absolutely fascinating, especially when it comes to artistic choices. If I had a dog to walk, I would probably be more subtle in my peeking. I have babies to walk, but when the weather is nice enough for that, it is usually light out until way past bedtimes...So for now, I will limit my peeping for the carride to work--and if the idea of people looking in your house freaks you out, then for goodness sake-- close your curtains!!!!

Laundry talk

We found a dryer on craigslist for 20 dollars!!!
We are going to go pick it up somehow tomorrow!

The nightmare of no dryer might be over. Can u even imagine, such a vital part of big family living, just interrupted? It has been horrible. BUT, soon we will be dryin up a storm, I hope.

What I want is two washers and two dryers, but I would settle for 2 washers and one dryer. anyhow, for now, that is only a dream.

We have new system, and I know big families are constantly in search of systems, so here is what we do:

We have 6 baskets, one for each person. I lay them all on the couch and then tkae huge mounds of clean clothes and toss them unfolded into their person-basket. then Daddy and the kids take them off to their appropriate rooms and, with some assistance for Charlies cloths of course, they get folded and put into the drawers and you have to bring Mama back the baskets. Somedays I will refill 'em, somedays that is all you have to do. I shouldnt say days, it is an evening chore.

What do you do to get the clean clothes back to the drawers, if you do at all? ; )

My first time

We just had to do what I think alot of parents had to do way before I ever did: completely LEAVE the grocery store without completing the task of obtaining the food, due to toddler spaz attack, level 4, code crimson.

It was actually quite funny and liberating! We have needed to grocery shop for days and days now, and even though I can get better prices pickin' and choosin' at the farmer's market and the produce store and Sam's Club and Wal-Mart and the little grocery store near the house, ummm its not my big life to shop with four kids all day everyday. I am tired, we have one car, we have limitations on alot of things, and so Kroger it was decided.

I don't know if these store names are familiar to anyone living outside of the midwest, but Farmer Jack was a big store that recently went out of business, leaving Kroger and Meijer as our only local "Big Grocery Chain Stores" and the competitive pricing has gotten less competitive and stuff is just getting so expensive! I had a bad feeling when I saw $2.49 a pound for red onion and $2.19 a pound for apples. APPLES! In October! In Michigan! no. then I wanted a small bag of almonds and they were 7 bucks. Frozen Salmon was $8.99. Pop was like 4 bucks. It was stupid.

But back to the toddler meltdown.

So we got one of those fun carcarts, and Casey and Charlie rode in the carpart. Knowing that this would only last so long before they beat each other or started to climb out the window of the car or whatnot, We also brought a stroller which Greta and Mickey pushed, empty. I had some ridiculous image in my mind that Charlie might "rest" in there, like he is 6 months old or something. So I brought a blanket and a pacie and a water. Thoughtful of me, right?

While we were still in the produce section, Charlie started up his high pitched demand of "I COME OUT. I COME OUT. I COME OUT! I COME OUT?! I COME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I COME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I! COME! OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ok, ok, there are like 12 grandmas staring at me like they never saw a mom before, and so in my best, best super patient "lil' buddy" voice, I said ok, honey, lets try the stroller" and I put him in the stroller. He was screeching before I could even buckle him in. Of course, I am over 6 feet tall, bending over our piece of crap broken stroller with some sweater on that only a few minutes ago felt cozy and jaunty but now was strangling me to death and threatening to roast me/give me heatstroke/itching, bleeding hives and so, I was pretty much high blood pressuring out and we weren't even in aisle one.

"There you go, hun" I smashed the little clicker into its receptacle.

"Greta, please push him around so I can pick some things"

Mickey has chosen this moment, like so many other high pressure moments, to chitty chitty chitty chitty chat and vaguely beg for weird things. I completely do not answer him. ?If he missed the 15 minute prelude speech that I gave in the parking lot about how we are only buying what is on the list and if you beg for other crap you will not go trick or treating then that isn't my problem, and besides, who could hear anything right now with Charlie SCREECHING.

I put a tiny bag of $4.99 a pound sugar snap peas in my cart. I have no idea why.

We get to the end of the produce and Casey is climbing out of the window of his race car cart and Mickey pounces onto the roof of it and screams "BOO!" and Casey starts crying, a bit fake, but nice and loud. So now I have 2 boys crying. We enter the beginning of aisle one. Some woman in a Kroger uniform walks over to Greta and the strollerfull of screaming Charlie and sticks a purse that is in the shape of a dog in his face and says "Look! Look! Look! Who's this? Is this doggie? Is this doggie?" and I said "Please, don't. Excuse us, please"

but over the din of Charlie's crying, neither of us really heard each other and I made a head-bobbin motion for Greta to just push the baby away and go on a walk, which she did not get and started getting frustrated with me. I decided to "pull over" and "regroup", and so I squatted down to Charlie to decipher what it was he was screaming. "I WALKIN" is what he was saying. He wanted to walk. As in, like a person does in a store. Like you see little girls do in stores, but not so many little boys. (Call me sexist, but then go do some field research and get back to me. I got 10 years in the field and I know what I know. 2 year old girls are capable of straight-line walkin now and then. 2 year old boys....they got about 5 or 6 more years to go before walkin can be achieved without some major glitches)

So, in the same delusional universe that decided to wear the wool sweater, that decided to go with the car-cart, that decided to buy snap peas, that decided to pack a little blankie in case he wanted to REST, I unbuckled Charlie and thought maybe he could walk with us.

and then he was gone. for a moment I thought "ahhh silence" but--no, no that's terrible--"Stay here, guys!" I briskly walked around the corner , fully expecting to see a tiny little person and when I didn't, I felt horrible. I ran to the next aisle and the next aisle--where he was about halfway down the aisle, trotting pretty fast. (Oh, how I wish for his birthday tomorrow I could rent him an empty grocery store and let him free!! No glass jars or staring grannies, please) so I jogged up behind him and said "Hey, baby! You can't just run off like-----"BOOM! He bucked back and headbutted me in the jaw. I dropped all facades at this point and put him under my arm like we all do when hoity toity grannies are not looking. I marched back to aisle one and told the children "We are leaving. We are not buying the food right now. It is ok. Lets just leave"

That's all I needed to say, right?

No. Mickey and Casey were SO confused and really, weren't we all? They thought that perhaps here, in this burning inferno sweater, in aisle freakin ONE, holding a 30?40? pound child who is completely tantrumming out and screaming SO hard he was turning FUSCHA. that I should explain in 100 words or more exactly what was happening.

"WE ARE LEAVING, GUYS. NOW. LETS GO!"

I grabbed our sticky gross pop cans, my purse, and ripped off that damn sweater, and threw them in the empty stroller which Greta thank goodness had the sense to just push and not question me. Mickey and Casey were blathering on: what about the apples and what about the peas and fortunately for us all, Charlie was just too loud to really be expected to hear anything.

And so, calmly, swiftly, mainly just just determined to hold my head up high---I channeled all the stories of all the mommies who ever "had to leave" , and they enveloped me in a good, rightful, strengthening, refreshing harmony as we made our way out to the car. I felt brave, in control. I didn't want their rip off food anyways, nor did I want to see another evil rich peach haired old lady for a long, long time. I felt really, really much better as soon as we got out of that store.

Or maybe it was just taking off the sweater.

We'll get some other groceries from other stores someway somehow along the way over the next few days, we always do, and we have stuff here tonight to eat for dinner, (along with what I can only hope are plenty of Butterfinger bars and dark chocolates from trick or treating!!!) Of course not every trip is like this, in fact, it really hardly ever phases me to shop with all the children.

Happy Halloween!