Crafts? Just Kill Me Now

Hello, all you crafty, scrapbooking, homemade-Christmas-ornament-making, knitting, sewing people! Welcome. I am not one of you. I don't do crafts. Or, better stated, I can't do crafts. I am craftically challenged. Creatively challenged. I couldn't craft my way out of a paper bag. You get the idea. Also, I do not like messes. Art projects make messes. It's a known fact.



So of course, my daughter brings home this book from school. It's called, "Arty Facts: Insects, Bugs & Art Activities." Greeeaattttt.

All weekend, she has been bugging me to do the above project, which involves making some dough, forming it into spirals, baking it, and then painting/gluing/glittering your spiral. Ok, not that hard. For most people. I've been putting her off all weekend. Yesterday, she went out to play and spent the whole day down the street. Lucky for me. But last night, I pinky-promised her that I would make the dough today. And every one knows you can't go back on a pinky-promise.

So this morning, I got out the book. The book said I would need a bowl, a wooden spoon, flour, water and cooking oil to make the dough. Ok.

Let me read you the exact instructions from the book on making the dough.

"In a bowl, mix flour, water, and cooking oil into a dough. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky. Knead the dough, cover it, and put it in the fridge for half an hour."

That's it. Apparently, I'm supposed to guess on the measurements? Let's see... 8 cups of flour, 2 cups of water, 5 tablespoons of oil? Umm....2 cups flour, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup oil? We could be here all week. You see my predicament. Because as if this isn't hard enough for me, they leave out the farking measurements?

So I consulted with my best friend Google, trying to find a recipe for a playdough that you can bake. I discovered that every single playdough recipe on the internet contains salt. Why doesn't it say salt in the book? Because they are trying to make my head explode.

The simplest one I could find said 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup salt, and 3/4 cups warm water. After tweaking the amount of flour and water for awhile, I came up with something that wasn't sticky.


See the TV over there? The Ravens are winning like 24-0. Oh Patriots, we barely knew ye. Besides, the real game comes on at 2:30pm. Go Cardinals!!

See why I can't do crafts? I'm distracted by football.

Now the kid is kneading and playing with a lump of dough that I hope will keep her busy for a while. And I'm looking up the authors to this book so I can put out a hit on them.





Plus, you know when the dog is doing this? It means there's going to be a mess. Like flour all over the floor. I hate flour on the floor.

So as I'm typing this, Kylie shouts, "Hey mom, come look at this!" I go into the kitchen to see that she has flattened out the entire ball of dough into what looks like a dinosaur head. Which honestly? Is the biggest insect I've ever seen. She has her watercolors out, and she's painting the raw dough.

"Sweetie, you're supposed to bake the dough before you paint it."

"Oh. Oops."

She keeps painting.

Right now in my oven is a green, dinosaur-head shaped piece of dough. Kylie just informed her dad that he wasn't allowed to eat what was in the oven. Because I'm sure he would have been tempted had she not said that.

I think I need a drink.

The Path To School

This is a sidewalk that leads out of our cul-de-sac and through that wooden gate. This is the path that Kylie and her little buddies use to walk to school every morning. Well, almost every morning. I've driven her around to the front of the school a couple of times, when it was snowing and very cold.

This is the first time I've ever not had to drive a child to school. When the older two were in elementary school, they went to a charter school. So there were no buses. It was nice, because back then we moved around the city a lot, it seems. Even though we moved, they never had to change schools. It just changed the distance I had to drive them.

Through that gate and to the right, is the elementary school where they have K-3. The 4th, 5th and 6th graders go to a different school, about a mile away. I love having the school so close to us.

I love this picture. I love the contrast of the white snow against the bright blue sky. When I look at this picture, with no one on the path, the solitude of it reminds me of The Road Not Taken. Even though this "road" is very well traveled by the neighborhood kids and their moms. Even though it's not a picture of two roads diverging. At the moment, in the quiet morning, it does seem to be "the one less traveled by."

Remember The Photographer?

The lady did indeed come through with our pictures. And since I know you have all been sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear what happened (ha!), I thought I'd show you a portrait of each daughter.

There were a lot more pictures, some family ones, some candid ones, and they all turned out very nicely. But I'm just showing three, because I don't want to bore you with 3450345809 pictures of my kids. You're welcome.


The oldest. I think this makes a great senior picture, don't you? Even if she does live in Arizona, and the background is snow. It's different. It's original. No cactus. I like it. I like it because it's not a backdrop in a studio. It's an actual tree, in my actual backyard.

The middle one, with the beagle. The photographer made this really weird, high pitched whistling noise to get the dog to perk up and look at her. A noise I couldn't even begin to replicate. But it worked. I know you're wondering why the child has flats that look like summer shoes on her feet. What can I say? She's the middle child, the only lefty, and she's a bit...different. And if she wants freezing feet, hey...that's her business.

My baby. That hair. Those eyes. Every single day of her life I make her promise that she's still going to love me when she's 13. One of these days I'm going to put it on video. Then when she's 13 and being snotty to me, I'll play back the video. Then she'll roll her eyes and go, "MOM! Omg, I can't believe you kept that! You are so lame!"

Sigh. I am not looking forward to that day.

Anyway, I love these pictures. I think the photographer did a nice job.

Sherlock Holmes

Welcome to day 7 of project 365. One week. Are you proud of me? I am. I didn't even think I'd make it this far. The question now becomes, not will I make it to 365, but how far will I go before I get bored and say screw it? Which is what I do with most new projects. But I digress.

On to today's topic, which is my undying love for Robert Downey, Jr. In fact, I just professed my love in the comments on Bossy's blog, because I clicked over there and she just happened to have written about one of my favorite celebrity boyfriends actors, RDJ. Do you read Bossy? If not, why not? She's awesome.

I should hire someone to keep me on topic.

Hiring someone would require money, which...you know, I'm unemployed.

Are you annoyed yet?

Today's picture is a screenshot of Sherlock Holmes, which the hubby and I just got back from watching. Not a bad picture for a cellphone in a movie theater, right? At our certain theater, if you see the first show, it's only $6. So for two of us, $12. And if you can manage to resist the popcorn and nachos, which we did, it's still only $12, which is why we thought we deserved a break, and went to a movie. Actually, I thought we deserved a break. He thought he should stay home glued to the computer, filling out applications online. I told him he could take a morning off, it was ok.

Hello, on-topic person? You're about to be fired.

We went and saw Sherlock Holmes today. It was a fun movie. RDJ does a great Britsh accent. For further proof, go rent Chaplin. I mean it. It's his best movie. Get thee to Blockbuster. Also, go see Sherlock Holmes. It was good. And I don't say that about very many movies. And the fact that I would go see anything RDJ was in doesn't have anything to do with it. However, me seeing Ironman II this summer may have something to do with him. Him being in the movie.

It's The Most Wonderful Time...

Remember that I said I was going to try and look around me for the beautiful and positive things in life? What could be more beautiful than the backs of Kylie (left) and her friend Zoe as they head off for their first day of school after winter break? Bye kids! Bundle up, it's cold!

The Flat Stanley Project

Over Christmas break, Kylie and I participated in The Flat Stanley Project.

Do you remember the book Flat Stanley? It's about a boy whose bulletin board fell on him during the night, and flattened him like a pancake. He discovered he could visit his friends by mailing himself in an envelope.

I had never heard of the Flat Stanley Project. My friend Pam in Florida emailed me and said that her son Braden, who is in second grade, was doing a Flat Stanley project for his class, and she asked if she could mail him to us. I said it sounded like fun.

Basically, we got to take Flat Stanley along with us on our adventures during Christmas and take pictures. Today we will fill out his travelogue, which includes the date he arrived at our house, our location, the weather, and a brief list of his adventures with us. I thought I'd share what we did with Flat Stanley while he was here.

The day he arrived, he wanted to go out and stand in the snow. Then he decided his feet were cold.

Here he is with Kylie next to our Christmas tree (which is going to get taken down this weekend, I SWEAR, even if I have to chuck it out the window).

Since Kylie had never read Flat Stanley and didn't know the story, we went to the library, found the book, and read it together.

Flat Stanley went with us to Denver Zoo Lights. The problem was though, if I used a flash, you couldn't see the lights...and if I didn't use a flash, you couldn't see Stanley. I opted for seeing the lights.

The day we went to the lake on walked on the ice? Flat Stanley went with us. He walked on the ice too.

He especially liked tubing in the snow.

Hopefully, Flat Stanley will be mailed back to Tampa today. When he gets there, Braden will take him back to school and mark our location on a map. He also gets to write a story about Flat Stanley's adventures in Colorado. I printed out all the above pictures and will be mailing them back with Stanley.

I think this is a really neat reading project for lower elementary kids. Have any of your kids every done this?

An Early Morning Visitor

One of the things I love about living here is the amount of wildlife in our neighborhood. We have lots of cottontail rabbits and squirrels, and also a lot of deer. I've been told that elk stroll through occasionally too, but I've never seen one.

This little lady stopped by my backyard for a snack this morning. She didn't seem to mind me standing on the patio, snapping her picture. She was much more interested in my pine tree. I imagine it gets difficult for them to find food this time of year. I locked the dogs inside the house so she could stay as long as she wanted.