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Archives for November 2011

The Cirle of Life or You’re A Soccer Mom

One day you’re a young woman with hope and dreams, plans for the future, and the next thing you know, you’re a soccer-mom.  Your only dreaming happens when you fall asleep for ten quick minutes waiting for drama auditions to finally end.  It’s the kind of dreaming that leaves drool stains on your shoulder and lines in your cheeks.  The strangest thing is you have no idea how this happened to you.

Oh, you remember the highlights – little people in scrubs screaming at you to PUSH; the Dora cake you baked in a bowl, frosted with nine cans of whipped chocolate, and subsequently offended every Spanish-speaking country in the world; the first day of school when your little princess cried so hard she threw-up on the vice-principal’s shiny new shoes – it’s just all those days in-between that confuse you.  It truly does not seem possible that you have three kids, a dog, four goldfish (Sorry, three.  I forgot the one floating at the top of the bowl this morning.), and a SUV (the fashionable equivalent of a mini-van).

You’re a mother of school-aged children and you’re not sure if you like it.  Oh, you love your kids.  There’s no question about that, but weren’t you created for more than selling fifty-cent cheetah print slap bracelets at the Santa sale?

No child was harmed during the shooting of this picture.

I’m sure you thought so.  Once.  Now you can’t think past the Mt. Everest size mountain of laundry growing out of your second floor hall closet.  You’re supposed to re-create the Mayflower from a shoe box and glue gun by Friday and your son’s eighth-grade teacher just called to tell you he failed his algebra test.  You know that the Pilgrims would never have required you to build a boat from cardboard, and although it’s unlikely any Indians will scalp you, your son’s Math teacher looks like she can swing a mean axe.  It doesn’t matter that no-one but Einstein and eighth-grade math teachers use algebra, you’re forced to Google the answers to tonight’s homework.

You have feelings of pity toward your own mother for the gray hairs you caused when you were sixteen.  You remember the maccaroni beach scene that hung over her wall-mounted telephone for so long only six lone macaronies remained by the water’s edge.  They looked tired and a tiny bit sad.  You marvel at the wonder of the slightly sagging, mildly wrinkling woman who is your mother.  She still sends birthday cards and babysits your kids when they are too sick to sit through another junior-league softball game.  She lived through being a soccer mom and she’s better for it.  At least she exhibits a lot more patience with your kids than she did with you.  She has that knowing look in her eyes – the one that says, “You’ll not only live through this, but one day you will realize you loved it.”

via Pinterest

While you’re sitting at your computer becoming best friends with internet math geeks, that mis-matched girl of yours clasps your cheek in her chubby little fingers and plants a spitty kiss on your face.  “I love you mom.”

You begin to understand that you are living your dream – the one you had when you played house in the backyard day after summer day.  It’s the circle of life, or maybe it’s just that darn Lion King song stuck in your head again.   Tonight you love the life of a soccer mom.

Then your cell phone rings from the front pocket of your jacket.  It’s the Math teacher and she’s swinging her ax.  It’s not only the circle of life, it’s the circumference of the circle + a-b squared.  It’s life as a soccer mom and you love it.  At least you love your kids.  😉

No Waxing, Dying, Cutting,Plucking, or Tweezing

The other day Laura wrote an unusual and somewhat disturbing post about what she wants if she ever falls into a coma.  At first I read comma and thought “Now how is she gonna fall into a comma?”

Then I graduated from the first grade and started thinking about being in a deep sleep for ninety days.  Would my friends fugettabout me?  Would my family miss me?  Would I lose weight???

Sleeping for ninety days almost started sounding appealing.

Then harsh reality struck.

What would I look like if I stopped shaving, waxing, plucking, dying, and tweezing my hair for ninety days?

Let’s just hope a coma doesn’t strike, or worse, a comma!

Gobbling our Way Through Twenty-Two Pounds of Stuffing

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we’re all 2.6 pounds heavier (give or take a pound depending on how much stuffing you consumed).  I’m pretty proud of myself for only eating a total of two slices of pie – one cherry and one pumpkin; however, I did polish off the entire bowl of fruit salad.  I know that sounds angelically whole-food-worthy, but the salad consisted of sour-cream, cool-whip, and mini marshmallows.  I think that cancelled out any and all nutritional value in the maraschino cherries buried under the fluff, but it sure was good.

Not counting the two minor stove-stop fires I started, the cooking went smoothly.  My mother ran my kitchen like an army sargeant runs a crew of men.  I’m a little slow in the mornings, but she kept cracking the whip, moving me from one main course to another.  I didn’t even cap any pumpkin pies with a lid.  There’s nothing story-worthy to tell.

My only mishap came in the form of a can of pumpkin.  The can jumped up from the counter and sliced a gash in my hand.  After squelching the red fountain on my lower fore-finger knuckle, FringeMan saved the day with a trip to the store to replace my pumpkin.  I still have a gaping hole in my finger, but it goes nicely with the four fresh burns from the woodstove.  By spring I’ll either get the hang of handling fire or I’ll have no hands left.  Hopefully my learning curve isn’t as curvy as my jeans.

Sales starting at midnight Thursday night squashed any desire to save money and fight crowds on black Friday.  I could have woken up at 4 a.m., but I’m mostly a social shopper and no-one else would wake up.  By Friday afternoon that cost me an extra $4 on my son’s jeans.  I contemplated not buying him denim until next black Friday, but the success of his sixth grade year was at stake.  FringeMom did manage to snag a printer/copier/scanner for twenty bucks and I bought a red microwave named Ken.

We played Scrabble the rest of the weekend.  And went to see the Muppets, because Kermit is dear to my heart.  The kids liked it, but it was a FringeMan favorite.  I think I saw a tear in his eye when the chickens started clucking in harmony.

Now we’re eating turkey morning,  noon, and night and trying to be thankful for the twenty-two pounds of stuffing still in the fridge.  It was a good holiday.

How was your Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving: Stuffing In or Out?

This morning I woke up with my head in the clouds.  I walked around in a fog for three hours in which I grocery shopped for Thanksgiving, missed a doctor’s appointment, and met my husband at a gas station for an egg sandwich date.

We’re fancy daters.

Now I have a turkey not defrosting on my counter, a half-gallon of heavy cream in my fridge, and three pounds of butter just waiting to clog my arteries.  What day is Thanksgiving again?

I’m confused like that today.

It’s a good thing I have a dishwasher to  make everything better,  except for the plastic cups I melted last night, but don’t worry, I bought a box of sixteen glasses this morning.  Now every one of my guests will have a real non-melted beverage holder on turkey day.  We may not have a turkey, because it just might be frozen, but we’ll have glasses.  And butter.  Don’t forget the butter.

This year I’m going all out – I’m making Pillsbury Grands Homestyle Biscuits.  It should be quite a celebration.  Raise your drink when you hear the pop of the Pillsbury can.

We’ll also have pie – pumpkin, cherry, and maybe apple.  I have a history with pies, but this time will be different…my mom will be here to help me cook I just know it.  I won’t even put a lid on my pumpkin pie.  I like to think the lid incident made me a trendsetter, but lids on pumpkin pies never caught on.  It’s too bad.  I like extra pie crust.

So what are you guys making for Thanksgiving?  I like to hear all the fan-dangled ways people make the fixins’.

Besides the turkey, we’re having stuffing made with mushrooms, spinach, sausage, and an assortment of other ingredients I can’t remember (recipe here).  We’re also having asparagus, green beans with bacon and sliced almonds, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (recipe here), and turnips.

FringeMan likes turnips.

I had to stop an older woman in the grocery store and ask her if she would help me find turnips.

“Oh, yes, dear.  I know what those are, but they aren’t called turnips here.  They’re rutabagas.”

Who would have thunk it.

Now I have three rutabagas that looked waxed.  Thankfully I have the internet or else I’d have to go track down that sweet old woman and ask her how to cook them.

So tell me, are you cooking this Thanksgiving?

Stuffing in the bird or out?

It’s still up for debate in my house.

FringeMan wants the stuffing in the bird.  Since I really don’t eat the stuffing, I don’t care.  I may reserve a little to cook outside the bird for those who like it crispier.

A creative spark ignites life on the Fringe.

Today was our first snow.  Oh, it wasn’t the first time it was snowing, but it was the first morning I woke to the sound of a plow truck.  I knew it wasn’t a good sign, but then I untangled myself from my web of covers and looked out the window.  It was white.  And beautiful.  The snow clung to everything in sight and it felt a little like Christmas, but that’s probably because my son has been playing “I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas…”

The record player in my mind (Yes, there’s a record player up there.  I am that old, but barely.) keeps getting its needle stuck and that line just plays over and over again.

I stole a tiny piece of Halloween candy from my son’s room.  He hides it from me, but I’m a pretty awesome snooper.  If you have any presents you want to find, call me.  I’ll come over and put my skills to work.  Anyway, I actually pondered what it means that my son hides his candy from me?  Am I now an addict?  Did Hershey give me a problem?  Do they have AA for chocolate?

So many questions.

I went to school with FringeKid this morning.  She had to bring in her longhouse and didn’t want to risk a ride on the bus with it.  Children tend to morph into wild little beasts when they get on the bus.  God bless those bus drivers.  They have a patience I’ve never had (nor do I care to acquire).

FringeMan outdid himself on this longhouse.  About a week ago I assigned him to this longhouse project.  I gave him the glue gun, a hand sketched photo, and FringeKid.  He picked up my glue gun and laughed in the face of every art project I’ve ever done.  Then he went to Lowe’s and bought a man’s glue gun.  I could build a bridge with this glue gun.  The glue sticks are three feet long.

I think he deserves an honorary doctorate in American History for this masterpiece.

Martha Stewart, eat your heart out!  FringeMan is good with a gun.

I felt the creative spark myself this week.   I didn’t use glue, but I definitely should have, because this project nearly brought me to my knees.   I just couldn’t let a trash pile wooden box get the best of me.  I have a house full of soft wood.  If you counted the scratches, grooves, and nicks you’d reach numbers with so many commas I couldn’t read them.  BUT.  The one piece of wood I decide to screw cup hooks into is hard as a rock.  Since FringeMan worked extremely late every night, I didn’t have a drill or screw gun handy, so I used a mallet (yes, a mallet) and a screw.  I pounded my holes with the screw, wiggled the screw back out and then (and only then) could I screw my little cup hook into the wood.  It was tedious.  I woke the kids up twice, but I love the finished product.

All FringeMan said was, “Did you take that off the wall first and then put all the hooks in?”

No!  Of course not.  I stood on a chair and used a mallet.   I did it the hard way.  Isn’t that how I do everything?

He chuckled a little at the mallet, but a girl must follow her creative whim.

In other news, I’m in love with an appliance and he’s not even mine yet.  Is it ok that my appliance is a ‘him’?  He is promised to me.  Ordered.  He should arrive today.  He will wash all my dishes from now until death do us part.  I’m just not certain what I should name him.  FringeMan may get jealous if I start talking about him in public, but I tend to name my appliances.  Fiona needs a companion.  Help me pick a name for my new dishwasher please.

And that’s the end.

I hope you all have lovely weekends.

Utensils: Modern Recycled Bling

I laid in bed this morning until I heard the front door slam shut.  It was my son leaving for school and I didn’t even send him off with a kiss and a “Did you brush your teeth?”

Thankfully my eleven year-old is the responsible one.  Here’s the thing, I was awake, as in fully.  I was simply waiting for my alarm clock to ring, because everyone knows a day cannot begin until the clock beeps.  Why in the world would I get up a minute before I had to?

It seems the time on my alarm clock fell back.  Again.  I thought I told the silly thing that time already changed.  Now it stands still until spring.  When I thought it was 5:59 am, it was really 6:59 am.  I am a bad, bad mom who cannot tell time.

I also had a contractor coming at 8:00 am and wanted to have enough time to be  ready to face the world and the kitchen guy who is going to save my kitchen from unfinished limbo.  I don’t think I was ready enough, because around 7:50, FringeMan looked at me and said, “You better tame the snakes.  He’ll be here any minute.”

Those snakes are my locks of hair.  My husband lovingly refers to me as Medusa.  Not sure if that’s a term of endearment or not, but he’s buying me a dishwasher, so he can call me Medusa for a little while longer.

It was a good weekend – busy, but good.

Saturday was ‘Girl’s Day’.  Originally my mom was going to join us for this day out, but she couldn’t make it.  So, FringeKid and I went with a friend.  This friend of ours lives with a lot of boys and she definitely needed some girl time.  We went to a big arts & crafts fair at the local community college.  There’s a lot of talent around here.  It was a great show!

FringeKid bought a fun pottery mug and a Christmas gift for her brother.  It’s a wooden frog that makes croaking noises when you run this wooden dowel down its back.  Very cool.

I got utensils.

Jewelry utensils.

Pretty cool, huh?

My friend also made some lovely purchases.  Unfortunately I didn’t get photos of her ring.  It’s even cooler than mine.  She told me that she operates under the premise that less is more.  I said, I like to think tacky is terrific.

We also attended a memorial service for our friend and an Awana Grand Prix.  FringeKid painted a car blue, glued a piece of bark and few blades of grass to the top.  Then she adhered a Squinky Duck to the little natural island and called the car “Ugly Duckling.” My son’s car was worse.

We’re not great with cars.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend.  How about yours?

Home Care Tips – My Best

It seems almost impossible that items in our homes can get nicked up so easily, but they do.  Like my mother always said, “Since no one seems to have done anything around here, it must have been the mice!”

Yes mom, mice get very busy at night.  They are responsible for everything from leaving dirty socks on the living room floor to breaking my favorite glass bowl.  They also nick up the furniture.

My solution  – Markers.  Almost any kind will do, but I recommend Sharpie and Crayola, not the washable kind.

I use them  to touch up my black picture frames, color over chips in wood tables, and most recently, darken the edges of some uneven floor tiles.  It’s amazing what a marker can do.  Crayola should quit marketing to children and begin a sales campaign for housewives.

No Crayola didn’t pay me to say any of this, but they can if they so desire.

Crayola, I’ll take a job.  Any job!

Anyway, you never can tell where I touched things up.  Even I forget where the disastrous mark once marred my beloved item.  Markers have basically saved my children’s lives from the wrath of a most not-happy mom.  It’s true.  Try it.

Home Care Tips – It’s my blog has been reduced to during a month where I have parent/teacher conferences, NaNoWriMo, and just a little less than five million kids coming to my house tomorrow.  Oh, and let’s not forget Thanksgiving!

My novel is only at 21,000 words and all I can think about is coloring my furniture.  Heaven help me!  Do you think Crayola will write my novel for me?