The Magic of Santa: Passing on the Torch

The Magic of Santa

Passing on the Torch to the Next Generation

Last night my husband told me that our 12 year old son was asking some tough questions about Santa. He's ready to know the truth. His friends all know and have been sworn to secrecy, but he's a die hard fan, and wants so very much for the magic of Santa to be real.

Several years ago, one of his friends at school told him about the Tooth Fairy. My son didn't believe the boy, so his friend told him that the next time he lost his tooth, he shouldn't tell us, and then he should wait to see if the Tooth Fairy brought him something. Sure enough, the Tooth Fairy didn't come.

Once I found out that he "knew" about the Tooth Fairy, I shared the magic of the Tooth Fairy with him, and entrusted him with the secret, and told him that now that he knew, he was now gifted with the magic to be the Tooth Fairy for the next generation. I told him he could NEVER tell anyone, that the magic must be kept sacred, until his own children were ready to take on the magic and responsibility for themselves. I told him if he put his tooth under his pillow one last time, the Tooth Fairy would leave him one final present. I left him a crisp $20. The next morning, he came downstairs with a sparkle in his eye, and gave me a big hug.

So now that it's time for the magic of Santa to be revealed, I am so very, very sad to see this part of his childhood taken away. I want him to keep on believing forever and ever. I love the magic of Santa, and I hope that I can pass on that love to him. I found a letter on Pinterest that I saw, I borrowed a few of their phrases (thank you! I tried citing their pin here, but keep getting a bad link.  So thanks to you who wrote to Ryan and inspired my own letter to my son. ), and I wrote him a letter:

We watched him read the letter, and seeing his eyes fill with tears nearly broke my heart.  But at the end, he said, "I thought so, Mom."  And then he started crying.  Then he gave us each a big hug and said, "I'm so glad you told me."  And then he started laughing about all the little hints and clues he had figured out along the way.  And then he cried a little bit more.  And then he hugged us one more time.  And then he left.  

I'm so sad it's over.

Sniffle

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Preschool Christmas Crafts

Preschool Christmas Crafts

 Evidently I don't have enough to do during the holiday season, so I volunteer at my church to babysit 2 year olds so that their moms can get a wee little break for a couple of hours.  And although I'm not such a big fan of the diaper changing duties of not-quite potty trained kiddos, I do so dearly love hanging out with these darling kiddos who are just learning how to figure things out.

To make things a bit more interesting, I've started creating some arts and crafts projects for them to work on during our time together.  Most of the time, I gather wonderful ideas off of Pinterest.  But today, I came up with this project all on my own.  It's a fairly simple coloring page, but the poem turned out rather cute. :)

Thank you to http://www.sheknows.com/kids-activity-center/print/candy-cane for the picture of the candy cane.  The poem I wrote myself.

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Penguins, Penguins, everywhere!

Holiday Cards 

So it's just about that time of year once again that those of us crafty folks start making our annual Christmas cards.  Yes, I know, I know it SEEMS early, but it's already mid November, and in about 4 minutes it will be smack dab in the middle of December. And by then it'll be time to start baking up a storm.  So I thought it best to get a head's start.   And what's a girl to do with her time all day long other than make Christmas cards?  Besides, it's a fantabulous way to avoid, oh, say, REAL work.  Like finding an agent, or writing book number 2.  

So, to get started, I decided to make a few of these guys:

Penguins!  

Or, as we call them here at home, pengui !

(which we pronounce PAIN-GWEEEE)

Cute, aren't they?

In order for you to make them at home, you'll need a few things:

 You'll need scissors, a glue stick or two, a piece of scrap paper (to glue things on so that your desk doesn't get covered in sticky glue goo), a recycling bin (for leftover bits), some craft paper (orange, black, white, and red), a pair of scissors with a scalloped edge (or a teeny flower punch, which I WISH I had, but I don't.  Sigh.  Poor me.), AND, this incredible owl punch from Stampin Up.  

When you use the punch, you get a cute little owl.  In order to turn him into a penguin, you have to lop off his feet and his ears.

Poor de-footed black owl.  Alas, he can't hear the screams, as he has only the one ear.  And no mouth.

Then you need to punch out various pieces with your lovely owl punch.

Please note that the teeny triangle beak was cut by hand with the leftover orange belly/feet pieces.  I also cut out the triangles by hand for the Santa hats.  And the fluffy part of Santa's hat was made by cutting strips of white paper with a pair of scalloped scissors, flipped over, matched the scalloped side so that the lumps matched, and then cut into a "beaded" white paper strip.  I saw several examples where other people used really cute flower stamps and placed those on the rim of the Santa hat instead.  It was über cute.  But alas, I don't have a flower stamp (sniffle) so I made do.

Then I spent quite a bit of time and cut out lots and lots and lots and lots of pieces.

So then I got out my scrap pink paper and started lining up my penguins in an assembly line.  I like the purple glue sticks from Elmer's.

Oooh, the creepy zombie pengui!

 For what it's worth, I like to change up the eyes, having some go left, and some go right.  

Starting to resemble normalcy...

 A million, gajillion pengui !!

I think mine are even cuter than the real thing!

Many thanks for the photo from: http://impressivemagazine.com/2013/10/26/30-facts-know-penguins/

 They are just so cute I can't stand it.  LOVE my pengui!!

I'm working on a few more designs (I like to shake things up a bit), and I'll add them on here as I get them done.  Sometimes I just do the same design, but change the paper, and that can make all the difference!  Super easy, no fancy tools necessary (other than the owl punch).  And what a fun way to spend a cold and icy afternoon!!

 I liked the cards so much that I made gift tags too!!!

These gift tags will go on hot cocoa mixes as thank you gifts 

(layers of crushed candy canes, then a layer of mini marshmallows, then hot cocoa mix, 

all put into a small mason jar and topped off with a large candy cane and these tags)

Happy Crafting!

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Halloween Pumpkins

Halloween Pumpkins

This year's pumpkins were inspired by Disney!!

From left to right we have the old guy from Up, the next pumpkin is Khoshekh, the floating cat from Night Vale (obviously not a Disney themed pumpkin, but perhaps Disney will buy out Night Vale's broadcasting show, and then you will ALL have heard of Night Vale), then Mickey Mouse, and finally Tinkerbell.

I think they turned out exceptionally well! Don't you?

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Raising teenagers -- it's all about the math

Raising Teenagers

It's all about the math

So, as is normal in the lovely Pacific Northwest, it rained on Friday.  Rain in Oregon is nothing like rain in the midwest, or even on the East Coast. Here, the rain is more like walking through a foggy cloud.  It's a wet misty drizzle.  Or, as we like to call it, a mizzle.

And even though Autumn has finally settled in (if you don't count today's beautiful, sunny 75 ˚ day), and starting tomorrow the rains are coming to stay until, oh, say, mid May, the children are in complete denial.  On Friday, the rain rain rain came down down down, so I sent them both to school with their raincoats.  They were prepared.  I was a good mom.  I was.  Really.

And yet, when we picked up our daughter at the end of the school day, her raincoat was no where in sight.  Standing in the drizzle, her hair growing bigger by the moment, she looked less like the dazzling, well-put together fabulous young woman we dropped off, and more like a half-drenched, pathetic dog.

Thank you to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdvin/372908560/in/photostream/

When we asked why she wasn't wearing her coat? Her answer all came down to math.  "Mom, I think you underestimate how lazy teenagers are."  Yes.  I guess we did.

As she dripped dry in the back of the car, we got in the car line to pick up our son.  Not long after, he came trotting out to the car, hand over his head, raincoat tucked under his arm, trying to avoid the raindrops.

As he dripped all over the back seat, buckling himself in, we asked him why he wasn't wearing his coat.  His answer also came down to math.  "Mom, I think you grossly overestimate my common sense."

Yes, raising teenagers all comes down to the math.

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Bubba, The Sea Fern

           Bubba, The Sea Fern

             Bubba, The Sea Fern

In the great grand scheme of things, there really is nothing terribly funny about memory loss.  Early onset Alzheimer's, dementia of any sort or kind, aphasia, dysphasia, or, well, frankly, any type or sort or ilk of memory loss is nothing to be joked about.  These illnesses affect so many many people and cause so many struggles, and much grief, that I hope and pray that all you lovely neuropsychologists out there are studying and experimenting and coming up with solutions that can prevent, stave off, and eliminate these illnesses and problems for the entire human race.

That said, I shall take this time and opportunity to profess that I have become one of the few, the proud, the lost.  My memory leaks like a sieve. And although I would love to blame my memory loss on something clever and long-named, and on some sort of medical deficiency.  NOT because I WANT a clever, long-named sort of medical deficiency.  But rather because then I could blame it on something other than what it appears to be.  Alas, I cannot.  *Sigh.*  My memory loss evidently comes from, ugh, old(er), old(ish) age.

Not that I'm old, mind you.  I'm not even what I'd considered middle age.  Close, but not quite.  But alas, my memory is failing me.  Not the long term stuff, just the short term stuff.  The silly stuff like, oh, say, forgetting where I left my phone.  Or forgetting to buy the sour cream at the grocery store.  Those are the easy things I forget.  Not serious stuff like, oh, say, forgetting that I was supposed to pick up my son early from school.  On Thursday.  Each and every Thursday.  Nope.  Not like that.  Because that only happened the one time.  Yep.  Just the once.  And he only reminded me four or five times that morning, so you could almost blame him.  Almost.  But, well, not really.  Because honestly?  What kid wants to be blamed for the fact that his mom forgot to pick him up?  But in all reality, I actually DIDN'T forget to pick him up.  I just forgot what TIME I was supposed to pick him up.  See? Nothing to fuss over.  Just good, old fashioned, old age.  Yep. That's the stuff.  Poor kid.  He did forgive me though.  So that's something at least.

To compensate for my rapidly deteriorating short term memory, I started using the kitchen timer to remind me to do things.  Yay!  The timer!  So I set the timer, I zip off going about my day, and eventually the timer goes off, and I ... uh... what was I supposed to do?  No idea whatsoever.  Unless a pot of water is boiling in front of me, or a lovely aroma of cookies is emanating from the oven, the timer going off no longer does me any good.  So, I've had to come up with a new plan.

My iPhone!  The customized alarms I can create on my iPhone have saved my katookus more times than I can count.  I set them to go off at various times of the day.  One reminds me to leave at a certain time (in the red car) to pick up my daughter from school.  Another one reminds me to leave at a certain time (in the blue car) to pick up my son from music lessons.  I have others that remind me to go places, and what to do when I get there.  I can even set the alarm to go off every day, or every Thursday, or every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.  Whatever.  It's awesome.  Thank God for the iPhone!

But then there is this teensy weensy memory problem that just isn't solved with the iPhone alarm system.  It's my problem with words.  As I writer, and a talker (!), losing words has become a bit of a problem for me.  When I'm writing it's not as big of a deal.  The thesaurus works wonders. :)  So does asking my kiddos.  They're great at coming up with just the right word for just the right situation.  I just talk around the word I'm looking for -- describing it as best as I can, and my kiddos take turns trying to figure out what word I need.  Kinda like when I was in France, and I couldn't remember the name for a certain noun, and I'd describe the noun to the lovely French people whom I still love and adore to this day, using my best French adjectives and descriptors, and 9 times out of 10, they'd figure out exactly what I was trying to say.  The system works great.

Most of the time when I lose a word, or worse yet, mix up the words, they laugh and they help me figure out what I really mean.  So when I ask my son to put his shoes in the dishwasher, I'm pretty sure he knows his glass goes in the dishwasher, and his shoes go back up into his room.  But one of these days I'm going to find sneakers in my dishwasher's lower rack, and he'll say, "What?!? You asked me to put them there."  Sigh.

So back to Bubba.  (I always get there eventually.  I just like taking the circuitous route.)  This summer we went camping at the coast for a relaxing few days in the rain.  Our children nicknamed a lovely bird who came up to our picnic table and started begging for scraps.  They named him Birbing Birbingston.  He never got what he was looking for from us.  Poor fella.  I kinda felt bad.  Not bad enough to feed him (my food!  Mine! Mine! Mine!), but bad enough to feel, well, bad.  I'm a bit protective around my food.  Kinda like these guys...

My husband's travel coffee mug.  Bought it at DisneyWorld.  Perfect, no?

So anywhooooo, later that day when I dropped a cracker on the ground, I started looking around for the bird thinking maybe I could make his day.  My daughter asked me what I was looking for, and I said I was looking for Bubba.  You know, the sea fern.

They spent the entire rest of the camping trip making fun of me.  And Bubba.  The Sea Fern.

Bubba, The Sea Fern

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Hands in Unusual Places

Hands In Unusual Places

Have you ever truly given yourself a moment to wonder about how many experiences we allow ourselves to have that are truly and utterly odd and, frankly, a bit absurd, if taken out of context?

A simple example might be, perhaps, how close we stand to one another in a room.  If the room is 10 feet long, and we have 8 people in the room, we may give ourselves a good foot or two between each of us.  But if we shrink the room to the size of, oh, say, an elevator, then we think it's completely normal for all four of the people to be standing side by side, front to back, touching even and we wouldn't think anything odd about it.  But if the same 8 people were to stand in the same formation in the 10 foot long room, we'd think it odd.

So what about hands in unusual places?

In a normal situation, would we be comfortable if we were, perhaps, sitting in a local coffee shop, just chillin', and a person came up, pulled on some gloves, and then asked you to open your mouth and then they spent the next 45 minutes playing about with your teeth, squirting water in, sucking water and saliva out?  Seems absurd, no?

And yet, we allow dentists to probe our mouths for 45 minutes and think nothing of it.  That is what I call hands in unusual places.

These past few months I've realized there are several scenarios in which people are allowed to poke their hands in strange and unusual places, that in normal situations, we simply would not accept.

Say, for example, the gastroenterologist, who poked a couple holes in my belly, and then pulled out body parts and sewed me back together.  Someone ACTUALLY had his hands INSIDE of my belly, and I not only thought it was a nifty idea, I PAID him to do it.  His hands.  Inside of my tummy.  INSIDE.  That's so weird.  Hands in unusual places, I tell you.  Hands in unusual places.

Or what about the yearly trip to the gyny who frolicks about in my nether regions without so much as a howdy do.  Again, another experience of hands in unusual places.  Seriously weird.

We think nothing of the ophthalmologist who sits INCHES away from our faces, probing bright lights into our eyeballs, feeling their breath on our faces, while we sit there placidly looking at the big giant E at the end of the wall.

We babysit toddlers who stuff their fingers into our mouths or poke their fingers into our ears and pull our hair out by the handful.  But if a grown up were to do the same thing?  Our reaction would be quite different.  Hands in unusual places.

Life is so weird.  How did we, as children, come to accept these oddities as "normal and acceptable behaviors" in some situations, but not in others?  No sweetie, if you're walking home from school and a man drives up in a van and offers to give you candy, you do not take the candy.  You run away as fast as you can and you tell mommy.  But, yes, sweetie, it's okay to go up to the stranger's door, ring the bell, and ask them for candy.  But only if you dress up in a costume and say the words, "Trick or Treat."  And only on the 31st of October.  No sweetie, we do not sit on the laps of old, fat men.  But yes, sweetie, we DO sit on the lap of this one old, fat, man, who wears a red suit.  He'll give you a piece of candy afterwards.

Sometimes life is just pretty darned weird.  And when you find yourself with someone else's hand in a strange and unusual position, don't get all creeped out when you realize that as soon as she walks out that door, she's just going to walk into another room, and poke her hands in someone else's strange and unusual place.

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Meeting the Real Jack Diamond

Meeting the Real Jack Diamond

When I first starting writing my murder mystery manuscript (nice alliteration, yes?), my husband came up with the name of Jack Diamond for the main character.  I've talked about all of this before at some point on this blog (perhaps try visiting here:  Dreams and Husbands).  He borrowed the name from a good friend of his named, obviously, Jack Diamond.

I finished the manuscript a while ago, and have recently started seeking representation while I begin plotting out Jack Diamond's next adventures.

A few months ago I attended one of my husband's rare work events, and my hubby casually mentioned, "Hey look!  There's Jack.  Want to go say hi?"

And I swear to God a wave of giddiness washed over me and I turned into a teenaged crazed idol-hunter.  Squee! I grinned like a fool and darted my eyes around, trying to spy him in the crowd.  My heart racing, my grin growing ever more expansive by the minute, I pulled my hubby across the room with me, so we could go meet him.  I felt just like the little kids at Christmas, dragging their parents (who didn't mind at all), to go meet Santa so they could ask for lovely Christmas presents.  Squee!

To me, it felt as if I was meeting THE Jack Diamond. MY Jack Diamond.  I couldn't wait to meet him in person.  I wanted to see if his black hair curled just so, like it did in my head.  I couldn't wait to see the dimple in his cheek.  I wanted to make him smile, to hear him laugh.  I longed to see that wonderful sparkle in his eye.  I wanted him to be as excited to meet me as I was to meet him.  I wanted to give him a hug to comfort him for all that he'd been through as a child.  I wanted to ask about his brother and find out how Nick,  his partner, was healing.  And yes, I wanted to see his incredible physique -- because yes, I'm that shallow.

It wasn't until we were half way across the room that I realized two things.  (1) I had no idea what the real Jack Diamond looked like, so this whole dragging my husband around the room thing was truly futile.  Then, as that harsh reality sank in, I slowly began to realize that (b) I wasn't actually going to meet MY Jack Diamond.   I had actually crossed over some invisible line from reality to crazy land, thinking that I was going to meet MY Jack Diamond in person.  He is so real to me in my head.  I can watch his dreams, and see the sweat pouring over his brow when he dreams of his father.  I can feel his heartbeat quicken as he sees Claire walk into a room.  I can feel his smile soften when his GranNini walks into a room.  He is so very real to me, and yet he's all made up.  Completely fictional.  Absolutely and thoroughly not really there.

So I slowed down my pace, and reset my expectations, and allowed a wee bit of a whimper to escape my lips when I realized Jack's not really real.  Sigh.  By the time I met the real Jack Diamond, whose name I stole (with permission) for my very own Jack Diamond, I had my brain screwed back on straight.  I was so very honored to meet him.  So tickled to confirm that he was still okay with my using his name.  He hasn't started reading my manuscript yet (I thought he might like to see the shenanigans his namesake is up to).  But he let me take my picture with him.

In person, the named Jack Diamond looks nothing like my Jack Diamond.  But his heart is still in the right place.  And I will forever be grateful for his allowing me to use his name.  

I was going to post a lovely picture of the two of us here:

BUT, I've managed to lose the darned photo in my digital hoarding photo files.  Ugh.  If I find it, I'll post it. And you can see what the REAL Jack Diamond looks like.  AND, once you read my fabulous book, you can compare it to what MY Jack Diamond looks like. :)  They're truly both wonderful, wonderful men.  And as for my Jack?  I can't wait for you to meet him.

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So Whilst We're at Dinner...

So Whilst We Were At Dinner...

Dinner at our house has always been an amusing affair.  That is, when we're actually eating at the dining room table as opposed to, oh, say, stuffing our faces while sitting on the couches, balancing plates on our laps and watching random Sci-Fi television programs.  Netflix Marathons are a commonality in our house, and we tend to binge on an entire series, and mourn the loss when we finally hit the series finale.  But that's a bit beside the point.

During the school year, during the school week, we try to refrain from Netflix Marathons until the weekends; and we generally, for the most part, try to eat dinner at the dining room table.  Breakfasts and lunches are eaten around the kitchen table, more often than not with one or more of us missing.  I'm not quite sure exactly why dinner is such the amusing experience, as opposed to our other meals.  But I'm guessing it has to do with the four of us being all together.  (Only on very, very rare occasions do the five of us eat together, but we seem to have just as much fun when we're all five, as opposed to just the four of us.)  Needless to say, dinner conversations at our house bring about much laughter.

Keeping that in mind, we, the four of us, (are we a gaggle? a pride? a herd?) have decided that many of the topics of conversation randomly approached at one point or another during the dinner conversation would make splendid blog topics for the future.

That said, I thought I would take a moment to preview a few of these topics here, lest I forget.

So here they are:  topics that have come up whilst we were at dinner, that I shall eventually, perhaps, turn into blog posts:

Bubba, The Sea Fern

The Ghost of Christmas Gallbladder

Hands in Unusual Places

Caution Ahead Ahead!

Gastroeconomics

So there's this octopus in Scotland...

The word for microwave in Icelandic is popty ping
(Actually, the Icelandic word for microwave is: örbylgjuofn; And from what I can tell, I believe it's the Welsh word for microwave that's popty ping. But I'll leave that up for the blog entry.)

Why would you oil the emus?

Abby and Little Mermaid?

So is it just me, or does Abby (Britney Spears) from How I Met Your Mother look a bit like the Little Mermaid wearing glasses?

 "When people yell at me, I have the tendency to start crying."

Just curious...

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Thank you to http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m32kfcS4mq1qmm3hho1_500.gif for the Abby photo.  And thank you to http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicaprobus/super-hard-disney-quiz#495ro6w for the Little Mermaid pic.

Kitchen Remodel: Materials Used

Here are the materials we used for the kitchen:

We bought our faucets and kitchen sink from George Morlan Plumbing

Oil Rubbed Bronze Kitchen Faucet

Kohler Bellera K-560-287

Insinkerator Instant Hot Water Heater F1000S

Insinkerator Instant Hot Water Heater Oil Rubbed Bronze Faucet F-GN1100

Stainless Steel Sink

Blanco Stellar 1.6 Stainless Steel Kitchen Sink 441022

Backsplash

Let me just take a moment to say WOW and THANK YOU to my two amazing tile guys.  It took two, expert tile guys, two ENTIRE days JUST TO TILE, and one extra day just to do the grout.  The mini 1x1 bronze tiles only required one cut, but each of the 2x2 tiles required two cuts each.  And the pattern created a bit of a time consuming, detail oriented challenge.  But the results were amazing.  Such beautiful artwork!!

Here is an up close view, before grouting, of the backsplash

So, now on to the materials we used for the kitchen:

Rug (pretty design over the oven, under the hood)

Outside trim (picture frame): Questech Oil Rubbed Bronze Braided Rope Ogee 3x12

Creamy colored inner row: Salerno Nubi Bianche Floral Accent Strip 3x10

Link to the floral accent strip through Daltile's website

Westminster Cast Metal Half Round Rope Copper 1/2 x 6

Emperador Light Marble 4x4

(My fabulous tile guys cut the 6x6 downs to 4x4s, then sliced them at a diagonal.  They rock.)

Link to Emperador Light Marble

Questech Oil Rubbed Bronze 4x4

Copper 4x4 picture frame

Copper 2x2 scudo

Backsplash (other than rug):

Emperador Light Marble 6x6

Link to Emperador Light Marble

Questech Oil Rubbed Bronze rope 1x12

Westminster Copper 2x2 scudo

Questech Oil Rubbed Bronze Fleur Dot 2x2

Bronze 1x1

Outlet covers:

Allen & Roth Oil Rubbed Bronze from Lowe's

Lowe's link to the outlet cover

Grout

We had to use 2 different colors of grout for our kitchen tile.  The first was Fusion Pro Charcoal (for all the oil rubbed bronze tiles) and the main one was Fusion Pro Light Smoke.  We have TONS left over.

Here you can see the light smoke grout.  So pretty.  Who knew?

Here you can see where they taped off the lighter areas to grout with the charcoal grout color

Super awesome Justin, my grout guy.

The cabinets

The cabinets we bought from Crestwood Cabinets in Washington state.  They are cherry cabinets with solid wood interiors, and have a Cherry Cordovan stain on the front.

The granite

We bought two granite slabs called "Typhoon Bordeaux," 3cm, from Brazil.

The Lights

We picked our recessed LED can lights from Lowes.  We bought them in 2 packs, then had SO much light at the end of the project we had to hire the electrician to come back and insert a dimmer switch.  

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