An Army of Frogs

For Valentines day this year, I made an army of frogs (this is an ode to a line in a song by Debbie and Friends).  I found this great pattern from the Purl Bee and it brought back nostalgic memories of a similar frog I played with at my grandmother’s house.  Her’s was made from scraps, just as these are, with a corduroy belly and paisley back.

For a Valentine’s day touch, I gave each of these lovelies a little wool applique heart.

I couldn’t post this until I delivered the last one to my new godson, who was the recipient of the blue frog.  Each of these is filled with lentils and has two little jet black beads for eyes (sewed on extra tight as to not be a potential choking hazard).

It’s been like the sick ward at our house, so apologies for the delay in posting.  I’ve not had much energy to talk about my crafting, cooking, homemaking, and new cool products, although there has been some going on and will continue to keep you guys updated.  It’s a snow day here as well and I’m enjoying the suprise day around the house with the family although my poor husband who managed to fend off our germs for so long has finally sucumbed and is feeling rotten.  I’ll have to try and whip up some soup tonight for him.

My Creative Space

Playing along again with Kirsty at Kootoyoo.  My creative space (which I share with my husband) is chaotic this week.  This is a pretty crappy picture, but seriously at 6:15 this morning I couldn’t muster any better.  You’ll get the idea.

Here you’ll see a sneak peak (bottom left hand side) of the party favors in progress for Mazie’s birthday party this weekend.  I’m not going to spoil the surprise in case anyone’s kid will be the lucky recipient of one of these, but you’ll hear all about them post party festivities.  Also on the table is my cherished canvas tote bag, given to me as a bridesmaid gift (seriously one of the best bridesmaid’s gifts ever) by my friend Nicole.  It’s served me well in that it was my work tote when I had to lug along my breast pump, work shoes, notebook, etc. for a year and now has become my knitting bag.  I try never to keep too many skeins around, but mostly knit one or two projects and then go back for more.  I find it makes me feel less overwhelmed by stuff.  Anyhew I’m currently working on this fabulous knit doll for Mazie from a Debbie Bliss book.  Again more on this one to come soon.

Ok also on the table are these:

I picked up these lovely little spools of ribbon several weeks ago at Michaels.  They are tiny little spools of ribbon, perhaps 2 inches in diameter and the ribbons are about a quarter inch wide. I fell in love at first sight - so cute and color coordinated -  I just had to have them.  [Again see my obsession with ribbon here.]  Now I’m at a complete loss as to what I should do with them.  So here I seek your help.  Please, please give me some suggestions on how you might use these little lovelies.  You can offer up your suggestions in the comments section.  Maybe someone else will be inspired too.

Oh where are you Ma’May?

I’m sorry I’m out of touch lately.  I have been battling this nasty bug, which I can not seem to shake, absolutely slammed at work with a most notable presentation to the President of the Americas (aka a big wig at our parent company) that turned out to be smashing success , my friend Ilana who normally watches Mazie while I’m at work is away on vacation, my in-laws (whom I love) are visiting, and Mazie’s birthday is this week.

Yes, you just heard it folk…the perfect storm of a working mummy’s life.   Alas, I promise to post VERY soon.  I have lots of posts in the cue, just been either too tired, too sick, or working on too many other things. Have faith it will be VERY soon.

Apologies for the post hiatus

Just a note to say sorry about the delay in posting.  I was having some sort of trouble inserting images, but my husband has fixed it now. I have a back log of posts so just wait.

One of my most treasured posessions.

My mom purchased this for me long before I was even a blip on the radar screen.  I’ve cherished it my whole life.  Used to only be able to take it out on Christmas, so this Christmas I’m reminded again about just how special this one little object has been over my life time.  Mazie loves it too.  There is barely a day that doesn’t go by where she doesn’t ask me to play the “mee-gits” aka music on my music box.  It plays Lula-Bye and Goodnight.  One day she’ll have one of her own too.

You can see other lovely creations like this here.

I never knew the makeup counter could be so great

I had such a wonderful moment with my daughter yesterday. She really is all girl. She loves her babies, her mini toy stroller, cooking, and makeup. Every morning when I put my makeup on, she drags her bathroom stool over and shouts “meeeek-up, meeeek-up” so I fluff her cheeks with the brushes and pretend to put on eye shadow. Then lift her up and say oooh how beautiful and she grins ear to ear.

Yesterday, I had to take a trip to the mall to C.O. Bigelow to get some new face cream. I had tried to be economical and bought cheap stuff at the grocery store, but my face broke out everywhere. So much for frugality.

Anyway, so given the immense choices and my love of all sorts of girly Jams and Jellies, I decided I was also in the market for a new lip gloss - Leighton Meester, Gossip Girl style. So I plopped Mazie up on one of the stools next to the counter and the gal at the store brought a few choices over for me to try. They have these little disposable brushes so you don’t contaminate the tester, which Mazie took to be her own personal set of makeup brushes. We stood there together with the gal from the store for about an hour, trying lip gloss on Mummy and pretending to put various kinds of makeup on Mazie. All the while, the other women in the store came over to oooh and ahhh over how beufitufl Maze looked in her new makeup.

She was having so much fun. Smooching her lips, pretending she was putting on lipstick, using the brushes to “dab” on blush, and getting really close the makeup mirror to admire herself .

What a great afternoon for Mother and Daughter. One hour of complete and utter girly fun. Robbie says he wants to come with us next time we go the makeup counter.

Sometimes I have to remember, they aren’t my toys

This mother thing has caused me to have to learn the art of restraint and patience. Being the parent of a toddler is hard for a lot of reasons, but who knew that I would be obsessive about the “correct” way to play with toys. It’s something I’ve had to work at because I now recognize I need to let go a little. For instance, it used to make me crazy that the books were not all back in the book bins with the spines facing out, that the real cool factor to the new markers was that the tops came on and off and not the fact that they made cool marks on paper, that the xylophone was better to pull around the house than to play, that the box the blocks game is was more fun to sit in than the blocks are themselves to play with, that crayons and blocks seem to fit much better in the ball maze than the balls do, and so on.

I’ve come to realize that although many of these things are like nails on a chalkboard to me, they are all part of learning to be a kid, finding out how the world works, and finding a sense of identity. I’ve also learned I’m apparently a little neurotic and OCD and that they aren’t my toys. They are Mazie’s toys. She can play with them anyway she want even if it’s wrong.

Slow and with Intention

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the pace at which our lives move and wondering if we’re missing something by not “stopping to smell the roses” so to speak. I’m going to make a concerted effort moving forward to take things slow and have an intention for my actions and activities. Now by slow, I don’t mean I’ll really stop and smell all the roses and I’m definitely not going to start walking a west coast slow walk. I’m a mom who works part time — get real people I get more done before 7 am than most people get done in a whole day. There is nothing “slow” about our life. By slow I mean slow in the “slow food” sort of way — being conscious of the process by which we do things.

In addition to slow, I’m also going to try to be more cognizant about setting an intention for the things I do. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class you may have heard the instructor ask you to set an intention for the practice, e.g. I’m going to try to let go today, I’m going to try to concentrate on my breath, I’m going to focus on my core, whatever it may be. I’ve always found this a very good way for me to feel fulfilled after practice and think that by setting an intention for my activities and creations I can become more fulfilled in them.

I’ve done this to a certain extent in my handmade gifts because I make them out of love for the recipient. But I think I’ll try to personalize it more with a specific intention for each project with the hopes that the intention behind the gift with the hopes that the intention will be apparent in the final product. I’m also going to try to bring more intention into my daily activities, setting a specific intention for my walk to the store, or to making dinner, or just in starting out my day.

Everything in our lives has become so immediate. We can connect with all of our friends instantaneously via our tweets and status updates on Facebook. We can find out what happened across the globe almost instantaneously by turning on the TV. Blah Blah Blah I don’t think we often have time to appreciate what goes into all of these things and what it means. Therefore my new mantra will be “slow and with intention”. Say it with me people “slow and with intention”.

Another reason you should always bring underwear

So this weekend I had the unfortunate experience of discovering another reason you should always bring underwear on vacation.

We went to the Cape this weekend to stay with my mother, attend a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, and host a breakfast for some old girlfriends who’d all planned to be in town this weekend.  I know action packed weekend.  Much to my chagrin, when I woke up on Saturday morning I realized I’d forgotten underwear. No big deal right? I’m at my mom’s house, I’ll just wash them in the sink and then toss them in the dryer for a few min and wallah! Clean underwear… or so I thought.

As it turns out, I only put them on air dry, which discovered at the exact time I was indeed supposed to be at the bridal shower. Thus in a panic not to miss one of my dearest friends celebration, I finally acquiesced to my mom’s offer to wear a pair of hers. Yes, I know. I can hear you all shouting at me not to do it, but in rushed, frenzied state I caved. On went my mom’s underwear, which were saggy in the ass and, no joke, almost reached up under my bra line. Not a pretty picture.

So now I dash around the house to gather up all my of bridal shower supplies and I take a brief swing through the living room where my husband is sitting doing work. Thinking this is all hilarious, I yank up my dress to show off the hilarity that is me in my mom’s underwear. He freaks out, covers his eyes, and screams why are you doing this to me.  Now I’m rushing down the street to arrive at the bridal shower, what I think will be late, wearing my mom’s underwear.  However, turns out I have the time wrong and I’m actually 30 minutes early, leaving plenty of time to have dry clean underwear of my own.

As if you needed another reason to always bring underwear, but here it is: you may just be forced to wear you mom’s.

Hmm sounds like….

Ok this one is not related to parenting or any of my normal topics, but I’ve been having a good chuckle over this new TV ad for a food snack. I think they should have done a bit more user testing or convened a focus group prior to launching their TV ad campaign.

Several years back a friend and I had a great chuckle over the ad campaign for a furniture store called the Sofa King. Now Sofa King was very clever and deliberate in their ad campaign, unlike the aforementioned company which I will discuss further in a bit. [Now’s the time when you might want to read this post out loud.] Sofa King had a great series of ads that played off of their name. Like: “Our sofa’s are sofa king comfortable.” “Our sofa’s are sofa king affordable.” Very cute ad campaign and a great play on making their name sound like something it wasn’t.

However this latest company does not appear to realize that when said fast like the Sofa King example its name and ad campaign do not actually sound like its name but in fact a male body part. I only hope you can have as good laugh at the Nut Snack ads I have recently had. Please now say aloud, Nut Snack, several times quickly as if you’re a TV announcer.