Gee, sorry about that, Lorelei

Okay, another change to the posting schedule. I don't have my shit together to finish the Simple Pleasures post that was supposed to be for today. Therefore, a cop-out. The "Leah understands" meme:

Leah understands the frustration of women who would rather scrub floors than shop for clothes.
What? No, no, I really don't. I'm not all that wild about shopping but I would DEFINITELY prefer it to scrubbing floors. Um, hello?

Leah understands God-given talents are different for everyone .
Yes, and I'm still waiting to see just what mine are!

Leah understands the needs of the working class and works hard to find people the right house at the right price.
No, I don't. Unless they want to buy my house, I don't give a rat's ass what they need.

Leah understands the desires of potential buyers and can help transform a home into an attractive space for potential buyers.
What's with all the real estate agents named Leah?

Leah understands the value of quality customer service .
Yes, I do. Especially when *I* am the customer.

Leah understands the need for education, instruction, entertainment and options.
Especially the part about entertainment.

Leah understands suddenly that the knife is a thing deep inside Lorelei.
Weird.

Leah understands the Los Angeles market, as well as the intricacies involved with relocating and buying a home.
I've never been to LA, and never plan to. But clearly my name suggests that I should have gone into real estate, eh?

Leah understands that immunity only applies to the competition and not elsewhere.
Screw the competition, I want immunity. Wait, I want SERENITY. NOW!

Leah understands that this loan is for the weekend only.
Those are some shitty payment terms, remind me not to borrow from you again, jerkoff.

Leah understands the glass and the torch.
Both are very important when heading off to a date with an ogre.

Leah understands the importance of lifestyle change.
Especially in your 20s.

Leah understands that women's subordination to men is, under most circumstances, a fact of life.
Are you fucking kidding me?

Leah understands people go through many obstacles in life which may bring some to the feelings of helplessness.
Um, hello infertility!

Leah understands that, and works really hard to find jeans that are flattering for everyone that comes in her store.
I own 1 pair of jeans because I have a figure like a fat 14 year old boy, so I don't recommend taking any jean fashion advice from me at all.

Leah understands how lucky she is to have sole access to this fine horse.
Ah yes, Kevin loves it when I refer to him as This Fine Horse. Although he usually perfers The Stallion.

Leah understands that events are more than just cheese & cracker platters with streamers.
Yes, they are opportunities for uncomfortable clothing and mind-numbing conversation. Good times!

Leah understands to some extent what the hippies were about back then but mostly she just thinks they look really cool.
No, I actually don't. I'm more the Pottery.Barn type, not the Hippie type.

Leah understands she has multiple identities, each of them important.
Multiple personalities? No doubt.

Leah understands the special needs of the dancing community.
Ha! Have you seen Elaine dance on Seinfeld? That's the type of dancing community where I'd fit in.

Leah understands only too well, not everything always goes to plan.
You can say that again. About 1,001 times.

If you haven't done it (which nearly everyone in the blogsphere has because I'm 729 years late to this particular meme), try it out. Google your name with understands.

Have fun!

Show and Tell

My 15 year old niece had arthroscopic knee surgery on the same day that I had my gallbladder removed. On one of her first outings after the surgery, they came over to our house so we could compare battle wounds. Because she's 15, and a great kid, I wanted to give her something to brighten her day. I made a candy bouquet.

I saw a couple of them online, but couldn't find one I liked that would deliver in this area. So I made my own. And here it is:

If you look closely, you'll see 18 different kinds of candy nestled in there. Yum!

Lastly, here is the happy recipient:

BTW, that's a cell phone shoved into the top of her ace bandage. I think that's hilarious!

Book Review: The Double Daring Book for Girls

I love this book. Seriously. I loved the first book, and I love this one just as much. Maybe more. These wildly talented ladies have written a slew of books. All of them are great, but my favorites are the two Daring Books for Girls.

How can you not like a book that tells you how to dye your hair with Kool-Aid, how to make a lava lamp, how to perform a Japanese Tea Ceremony, what the meaning of courage is, how to catch a fish, how to run a magazine, how to be a private eye, how to become President of the United States, all about the Underground Railroad, how to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe, how to shoot pool, how to say no (and how to say yes), and -- for pete's sake -- how to run away and join the circus. And that's less than 10% of the topics in the book. The information in here is terribly important, it is positively invaluable lore and instruction. I'm not kidding. Go buy one. Before you even read the rest of this review, just go buy one.

I challenge anyone to pick up this book and tell me that they made it through reading the Table of Contents without smiling, reminiscing, and also being intrigued. It's a seemingly random collection of really neat stuff that you find you are thrilled someone had the time, energy and brains to actually document. It's the stuff that's told around the campfires, discussed over dinner tables, and taught over sidewalk chalk in the driveway.

I tried to decide which was my favorite topic in the book. I narrowed it down to two of them, but it's a little like cheating since both of them are actually collections of things. One of them is "Practical Life" (pg. 253). It's subtopics are: sew a hem, sew on a button, sharpen dull scissors, plunge a toilet, stop an overflowing toilet, unseal a sealed envelope, put out a kitchen fire, fix a clogged drain, hang a picture, and get ink off your skin. The other topic is "Miscellanea" (pg. 273), and it's subtopics are: popcorn on the stove, the five longest rivers in the world, the dance moves to the YMCA song, homespun wisdom for stopping the hiccups, hang a spoon on your nose, make a wineglass sing, tin-can telephones, read a topo map and compass, whistle through a blade of grass, hide a treasure in a book, and the words to "Auld Lang Syne". Now tell me you aren't grinning, and nodding your head while you think, "Yeah, yeah!" People, just go buy this book.

When I agreed to write this review, I was told that I'd need to pick one of the activities and then blog about it. The only problem with that was that I couldn't decide which one to do! Luckily, Megan's age (4, going on 5) eliminated a few of them since she can't be trusted yet with paint (How to Paint a Room, pg. 201), hot wax (Paper Cup Candles, pg. 26 and Batik, pg. 99), wire cutters (Electric Buzzer Game, pg. 174) , concrete (Stepping Stones, pg. 189), a saw (How to Build a Raft, pg. 207), and knives (Whittling, pg. 240).

Megan and I actually enjoyed 5 different activies over the course of 3 days, but we decided to document one in particular for this review. It was in the "Fun Things to Do with Paper" chapter, item #5. Marbled Paper. Essentially you squirt shaving cream onto a cookie sheet, smooth it out, sprinkle paint on top, swirl the paint around, lay paper down on top, scrape off the paper, and let it dry. It was basically that easy, and we really had a blast! Here are some more specifics...

These are the ingredients we used:


- white paper
- a piece of cardboard for scraping
- shaving cream (foam, not gel)
- paint
- 2 crappy old cookie sheets
- a plastic fork
- a table covered in wax paper
- straws (not pictured)
- a smoothing tool (not pictured)

First, we squirted shaving cream on the cookie sheets and smoothed it out with our hands.

Without a doubt, Megan's favorite part of this activity was playing around with the shaving cream. In fact, as you'll see in later pictures, it all sort of degenerated into just finger painting with shaving cream by the end. But we still had a blast.


Then we used a smoothing tool (which is a fancy name for my thing-a-ma-bobber that scrapes off stonewear) and made the surface of the shaving cream as smooth as possible.


Next, Megan took paint (she initially used pink, purple, and red) and dabbed it on the shaving cream. We used regular ol' drinking straws to get the paint out of the bottles and sort of dropped it on the surface of the cream. Then she took the plastic fork and swirled the paint around to make designs.


When she was done swirling, we put a piece of white paper down on the surface and smoothed it out as we lightly pressed it into the paint/shaving cream. Then we carefully picked the paper up, scraped off the excess shaving cream, and viola!


We were suprised at how exact a translation there was between the pattern in the shaving cream and how it transferred to the paper. I was thinking it would be a little more abstract, but it wasn't. It was almost like putting it into a copy machine.

Next, Megan added a few more colors to her existing shaving cream (green, brown, and yellow).


After that, she continued to mix up the shaving cream until it was a discolored, semi-disgusting mess. Again, it translated directly onto the paper as a bit of a train wreck. But she loved it.

Here are her finished products:


Then, while she painted every body part she had access to with shaving cream, I started on my cookie sheet. I went for a nice, calming, ocean color theme (green and blue). I tried to get all subtle with the first pass:


And here's the result. Booooooooring!


So then I added more green, more blue, another color blue, and some purple:


Which produced a lovely piece of paper (if I do say so myself):


I mixed up the shaving cream a little more, but didn't add any paint:


And I got something in the middle of boring and cool. Here are my finished products:


Then it was time to play! Here she's scraping extra shaving cream off a piece of paper for fun:

And now we're just getting messy...




When it was all over, here is the mess that was left:


Not bad at all to clean up, and tons of fun.

We cut up our favorite parts of the paper, laminated them, and have turned them into bookmarks. Horray for Christmas and Mother's Day presents for the Grandparents!

Here's a snippet of the bookmark I kept for myself:


It really was incredibly easy and made some neato paper. I even tried what the book suggested and ran the pieces of paper under water, just to test the theory that the color wouldn't run. And it didn't! So it truly transferred the paint into the fiber of the paper I guess (as opposed to regular paint just resting on top).

Now, I am supposed to challenge you guys to try it out. If you are game, check it out. Let me know if you need more information about how to do it. Should you accept this challenge, tell me and I'll post a link to your blog.

Oh, and by the way... GO BUY THIS BOOK! You will love it.

Coming Soon!

I've got my review of The Double Daring Book for Girls all ready to go. But I can't get the %#^&* camera to cooperate. We got a new camera. Need I say more? Actually, we got a new camera that came with fabulous directions. Then Liam snatched the directions (presumably to take off into a corner and chew/drool on them) and we haven't seen them since.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain that I need a cable which seems to be buried under the pile of CRAP in our office (ggggrrrrrrrrrrrr), and as soon as I find it, you will get the review with some fabulouso pictures of the project that Megan and I did.

BTW, I also plan to do my regularly scheduled post for today. So how about THAT, party people? I'm talkin' THREE posts in one day. Madness, I tell you. Madness.

E's Interview Questions - Part 1

About 638 years aso, E was interviewed. Then she asked if anyone wanted to be interviewed, and I said, "Yes! I do!" Apparently what I really meant was, "Yes, please take the time to think up interview questions, then send them to me so that I can rudely ignore them for many months! Whee!!" I am an ass. But that's for a different post.

Anyway, the interview had 6 questions and since I'm subjecting you all to my daily posting madness, I've decided to stretch the answers out over multiple posts. So, without further adeu, here is question #1:

1) If you could live anywhere in the world besides where you live now, where would it be and why? What would your house be like there?

Assuming that the economy and cost of living weren't a factor, I would live on Kauai in Hawaii. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Our house would be medium-sized and would sit on a hill with a gorgeous view. There would be a nice, big yard carved out for the kids to play in. We'd have a pool with a waterfall. The entire back of the house (that faced the gorgeous view) would be made entirely of sliding glass panels. That way we could open them up (by sliding them into pockets in the wall) and enjoy the fresh Hawaiian breeze whenever we wanted. We'd have an outside shower, an outside family room, and a mack-daddy outdoor kitchen on our mack-daddy patio.

If not Kauai, I'd also settle for St. John, USVI. All the same house desires apply.

If not Hawaii or the Virgin Islands, then I'd pick San Francisco. I had a magical trip there years ago that could never be replicated, but I could come damn close if I moved there. Unfortunately, I have an irrational fear that all of California is going to crack off into the ocean and sink so I can't live there. No disrespect to my lovely friends who live in CA, and trust me that I completely understand why someone would run screaming from the Northeast corner of the US as well. :-)

If reality needs to be considered, then the answer is probably Cary, NC. Neither Kevin nor I have ever lived there, but we both really want to. If the housing market will ever pick back up, we'd consider the move. But how could I leave my TOOTPU ladies? (The only acceptable solution will be if I move close to JJ, that would help the ensuing depression.)

How about you? Where would you live and why?

P.S. - For anyone as anal as me, you might notice that today's post was supposed to be a book review. But the project that Megan and I tried to accomplish from the book was thwarted by a very short, drooling, snot fountain who trashed everything that he could get his hands on today. So we had to abandon the project until tomorrow when Kevin can entertain said destructo-boy while Megan and I undertake the project again.

This is the picture...

...I've been dreaming of taking since we started talking about having children. The one of my husband and 2 kids at the beach.

(I know it's supposed to be "wordless" Wednesday, but I don't think I'm capable of being wordless. Sorry!)

31 days of love, sweat and typing

You're never going to believe it. I'm so dedicated about posting every day that I've made up a freaking schedule. A SCHEDULE OF POSTS, PEOPLE. That's a lot of pressure. I don't know if I can do it. But I'll try. [insert dramatic wiping of brow here]

In medically-related news, I am doing great. I worked for 5 hours yesterday and will work my full 9 hours today. Today is the first day that I'm simultaneously itch-free, pain-free, and drug-free. Go me! Let's just say that the allergic nastiness got muuuuuuuuuuuch worse before it got better (okay, it hasn't actually gotten better looking yet, but I assume it will). I took more pictures but I'll only post them if I run out of better shit to show you on a Show and Tell Day.

Because my children won't be one-upped by my medical woes (or each other), Liam is now scheduled for ear tubes. Megan's surgery went well, so we're hoping that Liam's is just as easy. Poor guy. It's scheduled for July 27th, keep your fingers crossed. Any bets on when Kevin will be needing some random surgery?

Now, on to the posting schedule...
July 1 - Wordless Wednesday
July 2 - Double Daring Book for Girls book review
July 3 - E's interview questions, Part 1
July 4 - Show and Tell
July 5 - Simple Pleasures
July 6 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 7 - Honest Scrap tag from Jendeis
July 8 - Wordless Wednesday
July 9 - E's interview questions, Part 2
July 10 - "Leah understands..." meme
July 11 - Show and Tell
July 12 - Navigating the Land of IF book review
July 13 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 14 - E's interview questions, Part 3
July 15 - Wordless Wednesday
July 16 - Bedtime in the Good Ol' Days
July 17 - Top 10 things that suck about infertility
July 18 - Show and Tell
July 19 - Confessions of a BPF addict
July 20 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 21 - E's interview questions, Part 4
July 22 - Wordless Wednesday
July 23 - My not-so-secret obsession
July 24 - Oh, that's great!
July 25 - Show and Tell
July 26 - E's interview questions, Part 5
July 27 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 28 - The Cool List for 5 year olds
July 29 - Wordless Wednesday
July 30 - Some random quiz result from emode
July 31 - E's interview questions, Part 6

I'll do my best not to disappoint and slack and whatnot! I hope you guys don't get tired of me droning on and on all month long. :-)