Light Fixtures, Organization and Bebes!

This weekend was painfully productive. I am tired, but I feel empowered. I cleaned and organized and cooked and snuggled my babies and really felt connected to my life. Which is a thing I find myself lacking sometimes.

There are occasions, when I'm slogging through the day to day where I feel like life is something that is happening to me rather than a thing I am doing. I almost feel like a spectator watching from a theater wondering why the chick on screen can't seem to get her damn laundry under control, and why she continues to shove food in her face, and why can't she just relax enough to benefit from the obvious devotion of her husband. I'm mostly a mess.

I think I need weekends like this one to bust through that screen and be present. To start to teach my Sunshine how to sew, to sit still long enough for Doodle to fall asleep on me, to disconnect and talk with Banana about Ninja turtles and to start teaching Jammer how to feed himself.

I took them all to the grocery store by myself on Saturday, which is not a thing I do frequently, and while trolling down the aisle with my duck-ettes in tow I picked up a jar of Pickles and set it in the cart next to Doodle, who has to ride in the basket (because carts are not make for two babies, unless you are shopping at costco.) Not 2 minutes later I turn from the milk cooler to see the giant jar of pickles fly out of the cart and smash onto the floor of the store. The mess was epic and marvelous, and smelly. Pickles are great but you generally don't want to smell like them.

I could have ended the trip, but I was on store 2 of a three location campaign and I had crap to get done, so I sent Pumpkin for help, grabbed a new jar of pickles, moved the glass items beneath the cart and soldiered on. It was horribly embarrassing, I could just hear people thinking,
"Why can't that idiot control her toddler"
"Wasn't she watching him"
"What kind of dumb-ass puts glass in a cart with a two year old?"

I told the voices in my head to put a sock in it and went on to get yogurt, I didn't have time for self loathing and doubt and I wasn't going to ruin a perfectly good day over a two dollar jar of pickles.

Then yesterday I decided while the sun was still up, I was going to put in the two yard sale found light fixtures I had purchased in my room and the nursery. I looked up an instructional video on you tube and then installed two lights. Felt pretty good about myself, for a short period of time.

Then I started doing laundry and didn't stop until after 2am and I still have 6 baskets of clothing to put away, sweet mother of pearl we create a lit of laundry.

So here are some photos from the weekend. I love my babies

Banana and BayMax

Sunshine with her new quilt

Sleepy Doodle getting Mommy Snuggles

and Moose Snuggles

Jammer watching WonderPets

Lights! 

Songs for My Munchie-Girls

As a semi-conservative musically driven general mess of a person I enjoy losing myself in song. I listen to all genre's and decades. I enjoy Pink Floyd, Carole King, Megan Trainor and Randy Travis. I believe that all music has value and it is a beautiful outlet. My parents had eclectic music taste and I am so happy that I got all of the influences they gave me. I love covers, I love musicals, I love oldies, I love country, I just love it all. (Except Neil Diamond, dude, no)

Even the Pit Bull, Nikki Minaj, Justin Timberlake stuff has a place, that place is a club, where people who are old enough to manage their shit can decide if they want their ears assaulted with profanity and verbal pornography. Look, I'm not knocking it, I've wiggled my tush to that type of music on many occasions. But I feel like the radio has lost something as the club music makes it way onto the airways.

I am irritated by the musical offerings on the top 40 radio stations these days. When I listen to the radio in the car I want to sing along. I want deep lyrics and great accompaniment. I love to belt out Bohemian Rhapsody and Desperado and The Day The Music Dies. I don't want to talk in the car, I want to sing, all the way to where I am going.

My girls are old enough to recognize and ask about the words in songs and this has lead to some conversations I hadn't wanted to have at 8 and 6, and now it has lead to a concrete decision to avoid listening to those stations with my kiddos in the car.

Look, I'm not naive enough to think that they will stay little forever. I don't even really want that. The sarcastic sense of humor both of them have developed is the highlight of my life these days. I just want them to listen to music with positive messages because I recognize the effect it has on me and my outlook. When I listen to Firework, or Just the Way You Are, or Brave... it can change my day and make things a little better. I want that for them, to have a heart light enough that song can turn the tide of a rotten day.

Gift Woes

I am mostly broke, all the time. My new job, while lovely affords me precious little in the way of expandable income. and this makes Christmas scary for me. I had already decided not to try to craft my way through Christmas this year. It's a lot of work and after almost 11 hours of work(plus driving), 6 hours of sleep and 2 hours of arguing about bedtime, I don't get much quality time with my munches. I don't want their memories to be, "Mom always made us cool stuff, but man was she in a bad mood at Christmas every year."

I've convinced Jeeves to work with me on scaling down Christmas this year and allowing the blessings of our extended family to rain all over our children and let our gifts to them be more economical and meaningful.

He's on board but I still anticipate being humbled by his generosity with gifting things to me at Christmas. He seems to think I'm lying when I tell him I don't want much. This poses an issue when I don't get much for him. Because I think I've gotten him to agree that we are going to not get much for each other and then he breaks the deal. I desperately want to not spend Christmas morning feeling guilty for my lack of gift expertise.

I don't actually have a direction here, this was just weighing on my mind today.
Happy November All.