Motherhood and more: Making things by hand provides sense of pride*

I like to make things. I’ve always liked to make things. If it’s something I think I can do myself, well, then at least I’m going to attempt it.

I started young and I’ve tried just about every handwork-type craft there is. I used to sew my own Barbie clothes – mainly evening gowns of course – from leftover material scraps of whatever
my mom happened to be sewing at the time. Cross-stitching came later, toward middle school. And then jewelry making in high school because that’s when all the macramé-hemp jewelry was in style.

Around that same time, I made my mom teach me to knit, though it wasn’t easy because she was a lefty and I’m a righty. We worked more on sewing a few years later, though I still haven’t mastered sewing on a button. Knitting and sewing are probably my all-time favorite crafts, but I’ve also crocheted, gardened and, recently, tried my hand at Papier-mâché piñata-making.

And cooking. Let’s not forget cooking and baking.

My kids haven’t necessarily followed in my footsteps, yet. But I think it will come. They have an appreciation for the fact that I can make things for them. Or maybe they take it for granted that I can.

My son wanted a Minecraft Creeper stuffed animal and instead of asking me to buy it, he asked me to knit him one. So I found a pattern and knit one. And I have to admit it’s a pretty awesome Creeper. Even though I’m not exactly sure what a Creeper is. Or Minecraft, for that matter.

But my point is I like knowing how to do things. I like knowing where my food comes from, I like making my own yogurt, I like knitting my own sweaters and hats and sewing my own dresses. There’s a bit of pride with it, you know?

The problem with knowing how to make things, however, is that lots of times I will look at something in the store and say, “I can make that,” which is a direct quote from my mother. I probably won’t make whatever it is, but the fact remains that I could.

My parents gave my sister and me a pretty self-sufficient childhood. We didn’t buy vegetables in the store that often, especially not store-canned. We grew our own. We canned our own. As such, summer, to me, smells like tomatoes canning on the stove.

My mom sewed and taught me. She made pretty much all of our Halloween costumes, a tradition I’m attempting to carry on with my own kids. She also taught me how to knit and macramé, and that a handmade gift is always, always better than a store-bought one.

Cooking and growing things was a given. We were not packaged-meal people, and to this day canned spaghetti tastes disgusting to me. As does canned soup.

I hope I don’t sound superior, that’s not my goal. I just feel like, for me, making things myself causes a sense of pride that doesn’t come with buying something in the store. Plus, once you find out how easy making certain things actually is, it’s hard to spend the money on a skirt you know you could easily sew yourself.

Making something by hand, whether it is a necklace or mittens or a cake, creates a link to a time when everything wasn’t readily available, when everything wasn’t disposable. And I like that idea. I like working for something. Obviously, everything in my life wasn’t made by hand.

I’m all for clearance T-shirts for the kids and the little heathens love the plastic toys. But I try to input as much homemade as I can into their daily lives to show appreciation for the skill it takes to create something by hand. And to show that effort and taking time to work for something is important.

And I guess it’s working, a bit. The Creeper says so.

*This column originally published in The News-Enterprise on July 23, 2014.

Scenes from a long weekend

This weekend was nice.  Like capital N nice.  (So I guess Nice?)

We had dinner with friends and frogs and worms and tick bites (okay, that wasn't Nice) and soccer games and setting up the pool in the yard for the first time this year and sunburns (just me) and a walk to a downtown festival and face paint and $4 bratwurst and margaritas and more visits with friends and sewing and knitting and digging in the dirt and fishing for the boys and craft supply shopping for the girls and hamburgers two days in a row and a trip to Caneyville to see my sister's farm and fun with family and cows and chickens and geodes bigger than your head and entirely too much dessert and beer and more margaritas and and and ...

I want more like it.

We probably went a little heavy on the wine ...

I'm a little worn out, probably still hung over from a fall break and weekend that included camping and thorough house cleaning and soccer games and wine and a huge pot of chili and good friends and fancy vodka and zombies and pumpkin drops and fresh-squeezed, amazing lemonade and piles of laundry and cool nights and warm days and sewing costumes - batman and ghost with plans for a wizard - and more wine and cleaning the house again and playground time with Nana and wine and not nearly enough sleep.

And cookies.

It was one of the best weeks I've had.

(If you look closely, you can see Adele on the left
sticking her head out the side of the bucket.)

Potty training and karaoke are not normally written about together

So we’ve been deep in potty training for about a week now.  And it actually seems to be going well.

Sort of.  I mean, the peeing is going fantastic and from almost the first day Adele’s been going when she needs to go, for the most part.  It’s the other thing that’s causing us so much trouble and drama.

There’s screaming and crying and begging for a paci and sitting on the potty for two seconds then getting up then sitting then getting up then sitting then getting up until finally she can’t hold it anymore.  And then there is much rejoicing and cheering and giving of chocolate (don’t judge me).  And saying “All RIGHT!” which is what she says every time she potties because that’s what I say every time she potties.

So we’re almost there.  And it makes me so sad.

 

I know, I know.  I’m insane.  But she’s my baby. 

Sebastian just started bring his lunch to school and the night before, as I was packing up his peanut and jelly burrito and blueberries and carrots, I got a little teary. 

My kids are growing up, guys. 

However sad this may make me, it does offer me a minor luxury in the form of hitting up a local karaoke bar with some friends and not feeling too guilty about it. 

(Awesome segue, right?) (Also, I had to look up how to spell ‘segue’.)

This weekend we had a girls’ night where we went to a local German restaurant and ate schnitzel and drank beer and watched a karaoke contest.  Only one of us was brave enough to actually get up and sing and it wasn’t me.  Lauren rocked out to “Kerosene,” which is an awesome song and she did an awesome job. 

I was unfortunately unable to karaoke as I was having too much fun monopolizing the conversation, like I tend to do whenever I’m around anyone other than my husband because I see him all the time.  So when I see my friends I drink too much and talk too much and generally make an ass of myself.

It’s awesome, is what I’m saying.

But one of the girls is having a baby soon so we sort of mashed up this dinner with a baby shower because nothing says baby shower like beer and karaoke.  (No she wasn’t drinking the beer.  Mostly that was just me.)

But really, we all brought gifts and I wrapped her chair in streamers and we blew up some balloons and set them on the table.

Anybody need me to plan your party?  Cause I got mad skillz.  Yo.

Also I may have sort of hit on a 21-year-old bartender that my friend Robin said looked like wolverine.  I didn’t actually try to pick him up, I was just friendly.  And then he told me his age and I felt vaguely depressed. 

God I love those ladies.  

(Here are some photos that I stole from my friend.  The first one is dinner before karaoke.  Notice the balloons.  The second one is in the bar that's attached to the restaurant.  Notice the beer-reddened cheeks.  And my sexy friend, Laura.)

Things that made me happy this weekend

1. Homemade Pizza

2. Little boys in suit jackets:

3. Shopping by myself

4. Finally being able to decorate the Christmas tree with my children helping me so I don't have to do it all myself.

5. Crappy Christmas parties with Crappy Christmas Gifts (I brought dental floss).

6. Ugly Sweater contests at Crappy Christmas parties, even though I didn't win.

7. Leaving the house in the evening by myself to hang out with friends I hardly ever get to see, knowing that my kids are in fantastic hands with their father.

8. Friends who get me and get my sense of humor and take the time to make me things they know I will love (Thanks, Lauren!):

9. Pancake Sunday

10. Chris taking the kids to Bernheim Forest for 3 hours Sunday morning to give me time to myself, even though I only used it to clean.

11. Having a clean house

12. Sunday dinner at my parents' house

13. Apple pie

14. Warm weather

15. Kick back bruises from the shotgun.

16. Knowing that when the zombie apocalypse happens I know how to handle a weapon. 

Fiona Apple gave me a sinus infection and second degree burns

Guys, I’m cold.  Like COLD cold.  I’ve got five layers on my top half, two of them fleece, and still I can’t get warm.  Maybe that’s care of the three hours of sleep total I got last night because the youngest decided that sleep just wasn’t her thing and her father is out of town so I had the brunt of the sleep deprivation this time.  Or maybe it’s because my husband won’t let me turn the heat on in the house until he’s around because he’s afraid it will blow up or something, and at least if he’s here will all be in it together?  Maybe?  But I guess I can be thankful that the 64 degrees it’s been inside all day has gotten Sebastian to voluntarily put on pants without argument for the first time in a week.  Do you know how exhausting it is to argue with a 4 year old about the weather and how cold it is and how cold he’ll be without shoes and pants outside?

Me and Lauren at the concert. I'm totally not drunk here.
Also I stole this picture.

Or maybe I can’t get warm because of the sinus infection Fiona Apple gave me.

That’s right.  I’m blaming her.

My friend Lauren and I went to see her in concert at the Palace on Friday.  I’m not really a concert-going person anymore, for various reasons, including money, exhaustion, and how old I usually feel.  But this one struck my fancy and Lauren said she’d go with me.  I was super psyched to relieve some of my angsty emotions and feelings that I felt so very strongly as a teenager.  I was even prepared to maybe cry.*

And I had a blast, even though I got a super awful second degree (totally guessing) burn on the roof of my mouth when I was trying to act like I knew what I was doing with chopsticks and popped a freshly-fried wonton appetizer in my mouth and was too drunk on my one Bells Two-hearted to realize that I could probably spit it out and avoid the worst of the burn and inner-mouth pealing.

It blistered almost immediately.

I just drank more to cover up the pain.

But the concert actually was disappointing, unfortunately.

It was just so loud. And that’s not something I associated with Fiona Apple.  To me she’s quiet and pensive and thoughtful and introspective.

Rock?  Not so much.  And my problem was that if you didn’t know the song, you had no idea what she was saying, or singing.  And her words and the musical composition are what make her good in my opinion.  But you couldn’t hear any of that.

She spoke into the microphone a couple of times, but you couldn’t hear what she was saying.  And she came out with a walking stick. 

So.  Concert – disappointing.  Beer and company – awesome.  Raw sushi I at even after the wonton injury of 2012 – so, so good.

But I came home with a sinus infection and a burn that still causes me so much discomfort whenever I eat, although ice water is tasting like honey from heaven these days. 

It makes the hot tea and coffee I’m craving a bitch to drink.** 

(Three hours of sleep.  WTF, Adele?  At least YOU GET TO NAP.)

*Not really, although I cried while watching a mixed martial arts movie the other day but in my defense it was very emotionally moving underneath all the beatings.

**Oh, speaking of coffee – I finally tried a pumpkin spiced latte.  It was disgusting.  You are all liars.

Searching for the Bird of DOOM at Huber's today ...

Let's hope we have as much fun as last time. (http://jaimalaya.blogspot.com/2011/06/he-was-pretty-much-asleep-as-soon-as-i.html )

Lord help us.

So I had a birthday party for my son a month ago …

And in finally looking through my pictures I realized that I don’t have that many.

I promise he had more fun than this pictures shows.

Woops.  I was kind of busy.

About a week before Sebastian’s party Chris decided that it needed to have a theme.  Now, he will tell you that he just suggested it, but everyone knows that by ‘suggesting’ he totally meant ‘Get on it, Woman.’

I’ve never considered myself someone who has ‘theme’ parties.  I mean, I like them and I enjoy the result, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because I am not that disciplined and also kind of lazy.  And yet here I was.

It took us forever to actually pick one out.  We started with dragon themes and Viking themes and finally, FINALLY settled on a camping one.  My idea, by the way.  And then I went nuts.  The kids were with grandparents so I had time to spend searching around online for different ideas of what I could do.  I started big, with games and party favors and s’mores.  (What?  That doesn’t sound that big to you? Try putting it together in a week with your husband spending all of his free time doing homework instead of keeping the children out of your hair.  Don’t judge me.)

Water balloons!

Throughout the week I whittled away at everything until I think we had a pretty good set up.  I got rid of the ‘Pin the Fire on the Log’ game because I was afraid of the end result looking like a flaming piece of shit.  And we decided that a nature hike wasn’t necessary because they could just walk around the backyard themselves whenever they wanted.

Scavenger hunt!

But I did keep the gift bags full of snakes and bugs and homemade trail mix and flashlights and glow sticks and candy.  We used a scavenger hunt for that one.

And the day dawned bright and record-breakingly hot, topping out at 107, I believe.  We actually weren’t that stressed because I’d done as much as I could have early, including cutting out about a million cloud, tree, and camping-related pieces for a garland that I sewed and glued myself, and cupcake decorations that I taped to toothpicks myself.

Scavenger hunt!

Because I am insane.  My wrists were pretty pissed at me for awhile after the party.  And no, I don’t have a picture but it's still hanging up in my back room if you want to come over and look at it. 

We had the pool set up and a sprinkler and water balloons.  We had a canoe casually placed in our backyard and a tent that kept blowing over.  We had the fire pit set up, partly for the scavenger hunt and partly for the s’mores that never actually got made because I forgot about them.

A thing of beauty. At least by my inexperienced standards.

And we had pizza and lemon cupcakes and chocolate cake that I decorated myself. 

And we had a damn good time.  The scavenger hunt had clues like “When you’re done canoeing and want to rest, where do you go? When you want to cook the fish you caught, what do you use?”  The final one was “When you come home from camping and you want to take a nap in the living room, what do you do it on?”  You guys, I am so creative!  But we had to keep the gift bags inside because the trail mix had chocolate in it.

As I was carrying Sebastian up to bed that night he squeezed me extra tight.  And then he said ‘This was the best birthday ever!  Thank you for giving it to me!’

Totally worth all of the stress.