Did I speak too soon yesterday? Did I anger the weather gods? It snowed again this morning - still is snowing, in fact - and it’s decided to stick around.

I can appreciate what a fun sight this is to a little person, I really can.

And I can even enjoy this kind of thing myself. Particularly in my pajamas, curled up on the couch clutching a mug of something warm. Oh, yes, that kind of thing really hits the spot.

But beautiful fall-meets-winter scenes like this one only really last until it’s time to head to school. And today, one boy had a delayed opening but the other didn’t. Which means I had to go out twice.

Two times to put the chill into my feet.

Two times to navigate the slushy roads.

This unexpected November snowfall really put a crimp in my Monday morning agenda. The flakes are still falling lazily out my window, the trees are still a beauty to behold, and my toes are still cold from the last time I went out an hour and a half ago…

I’ve had to abandon my plans to get my eyebrows waxed - guess I’ll just be shaggy for Thanksgiving. In all of the snowy excitement this morning, I forgot to start the crock pot with tonight’s dinner, so I’ll have to make whatever tomorrow’s meal was going to be instead. I haven’t yet tackled the work I planned to do on the kitchen sink, but I can handle doing that later this afternoon - and find a way for Eamonn to help me.

Speaking of little helpers, I did accomplish one thing already today. In the hour Aidan and I had to ourselves after we dropped Eamonn off at school, he stripped his and his brother’s beds for me, helped me sort the dirty laundry, learned to fold his own clean shirts and learned to bundle his clean socks into pairs. I have to tap that 7-year-old energy more often… He’s not usually the one who wants to help, but he was ready and eager this morning, and for that I am thankful. Maybe there’s something about being home alone with me, without little brother underfoot that brings out this side of him.

In less than an hour, it will be time to go out again and pick up the little guy. It really is pretty out there. Forget about the treacherous driving, the inconvenience, the chilly feet.

Focus on the beauty. Right?

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We’re huntin’ wabbits!

Actually, not rabbits. We were looking for a raccoon. We’d seen him sitting in the driveway, watching us walk down the path towards him on our way to the garage. As we got closer carrying our bags of garbage and recycling, he toddled off towards the back yard. I put the bags in the cans in the garage, ran inside to get my camera, gave Eamonn a little direction regarding appropriate behavior around wild raccoons, and set off to see if we could snap a picture of the big guy.

We couldn’t. Never did find him again. But I got this lovely shot of the back of Eamonn’s head, and his nibble-worthy little neck, as we made our way back to the front door.

It’s been a busy day so far of observing a flock of migrating blackbirds, dropping Aidan off at school, locating a napkin basket, finally changing a hard-to-reach light bulb, cleaning the kitchen, raccoon hunting, cleaning the living room, picking items to be shipped, sitting in on one of Aidan’s classes for American Education Week, sharing lunch with Mom & Eamonn, and picking the rest of the items to be shipped. Were it not for the school-related distraction in the middle of the day, I’d probably have gotten at least the Priority Mail packages on their way today. Unfortunately, though, I’ve missed the mail pickup at this point. Which is why I have time to be blogging right now. If there still existed a chance of getting these packages in the mail today, I’d be hunkering down, stuffing envelopes and boxes with wild abandon. I get a momentary reprieve, but I guess I know how I’ll be spending my night!

Today I am thankful that I have a mother who is willing and able to come over and watch Stuart Little with Eamonn when I have “no younger siblings allowed” events to attend for Aidan. Thanks, Mom

[Edited to add: I forgot to mention what I did here last night.  I enabled gravatars in the comments.  If you don’t have one, you are represented by a big pink dot.  If you don’t want to be a dot, get yourself a gravatar.  They’ll work on any site that uses them.]

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Some days when the boys are home from school, I get all domestic and get in the mood to take care of laundry, clean up the kitchen, maybe catch up on some business email.  This is not one of those days.  When it became clear to me that the guys were hunkering down for a long morning of imaginative play in their pajamas, I decided I wanted to play something myself.  So, I sat on my bed with a pile of fabric, cut out the pieces for my mother-in-law’s birthday present, and I cut out the fabric for a skirt.  I didn’t stitch up my MIL’s napkins, but I did make this skirt - my Thanksgiving skirt.  Yes, I realize these guys are roosters and not turkeys, but I couldn’t find turkeys.  Or pilgrims.  Or cornucopias.  Or depictions of Thanksgiving feasts.  So roosters it is, and I think they’re nifty.  Specifically, the fabric is Alexander Henry’s The Roost.  The skirt itself was made without a pattern.  I just folded it selvage-to-selvage, stitched it into a tube, hemmed it, and made an elastic casing on the top.

I still felt like playing after that, so I colored my hair.   I spent this summer squirting peroxide here and there on my head, leading to streaks of lighter color.  I did have a plan, but I kind of lost interest in pursuing it at some point, and stopped bothering.  And it was starting to look like I stopped bothering.  So, I got my hands on a box of temporary 28-shampoo Chestnut Brown and went to town.  Now I look more like nature intended ;-)  At least for the next few weeks, anyway.

I didn’t make the soup this morning - I did that on Monday, but I did eat the leftovers for lunch yesterday, and that’s when I took this picture.  It’s Turkey Curry Meatball Soup, and despite the fact that it’s full of vegetables, I really like it!  I even liked it for lunch a few days later, and I am not a leftovers fan, generally-speaking.  Good thing it was delicious, because the recipe made quite a bit.  As part of my “get organized” initiative, I’m planning our meals for the week, and giving each day a “theme.”  Mondays are to be “try something new” night and this soup was the first candidate.  I’m so glad we liked it, because I now have three containers of it frozen for future “grab something decent out of the freezer” nights.

Day two and I’m already thinking of skipping the NaBloPoMo festivities.  Not that I won’t post every day, because I might, but I think I’ve lost interest in the idea of being part of the whole organized movement.  Still, being thankful is always a good thing, so I’ll end this post with what I am thankful for today:  Days off from school that we can spend playing (together or on our own) and spontaneously visiting with family.

And with that, I must go and straighten up the living room - my mother and nephews are coming over shortly to join us for lunch at Stewarts (see?  I meant it when I told them “maybe another day”) followed by a little play time.

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Eamonn had a Target gift card and chose to spend some of it on a set of alphabet blocks.  It doesn’t matter how many elaborate newfangled toys end up in our family room, it seems the most popular are always the classic toys.  They are particularly fond of anything with letters on it, as letters lend themselves to spelling silly words.  And silly words lead to giggles.  Lots of giggles.  This set of blocks is very cool because there is more than one of each letter, so they can actually spell their own names without having to employ creative spellings, or turning V’s into A’s and Z’s into N’s.

At my suggestion, Eamonn also bought a clear tub to put the blocks in.  And yet, well, let’s just say maybe I should start a pool here on how many days it will be before the first block finds its painful way under my foot while I’m holding a heavy laundry basket on my way to the washing machine…  I’m going to have to come up with a good way to entice him to keep the blocks put away.  And if I’m successful with that, maybe I can branch into keeping the computer games in their cases and his socks off of the floor.  A mother can dream, right?

Look what was in our yard late this afternoon.  What a ruckus this little one was making!  I don’t think I’ve heard a full-size cat meow so loud, let alone a kitten.  He wasn’t the least bit afraid of letting me get close, either.   Yesterday there was a different kitten in the yard - all black - but he was super skittish.  I’m guessing they’re related.  Too bad Neil and Eamonn have bad physical reactions to cats, or I’d have put a bowl of something out for the fuzzy little guy.  The boys would both love to have a pet, and cats are at the top of their list.

Anybody ever have bunnies?  I keep thinking a rabbit might be a nice pet, but I wonder what the “upkeep” is like.  At this point I don’t want a high-maintenance animal, but I could handle a pet that has similar requirements to cats.  Dog-level requirements would be too much for me.  If you’ve placed an order with me in the last few weeks, you’d agree that adding one more big distraction to my plate would be a bad idea!

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This morning I tried a new soap. One minute I was a 36-year-old woman taking a shower and the next I was five or six, in a movie theater with my grandparents watching Pete’s Dragon and eating butterscotch candies from Granny’s pocketbook. That’s some powerful soap.

Ahem. Anyway. I’ve decided we spend too much time staring at screens, be they computer monitors or televisions. This point was driven home to me this morning when I suggested to my little henchmen that we should have a few hours today with no TV and no computers. From the looks on their panic-stricken faces, you’d think I had put forth the idea that we spend the day organizing our underwear drawers and vacuuming.

At approximately 9:30am, after ample warning and time to play a few games, I turned off their computer monitors, closed the lid on my laptop, and set the timer in the kitchen for 2 hours. Then Eamonn and I set to work making a pie. I was under the impression that I had taken a glass pie plate from among my grandmother’s things (the other grandmother, not the one with the butterscotch candies) a few years ago. I thought it was part of the small collection of items I picked out when my parents were cleaning out Grandma & Grandpa’s house in preparation to sell it. I suppose I could be wrong. Or maybe I put it somewhere weird. Either way, there was no pie plate to be found. Eamonn crawled into the cabinet for me to check the dark corner in the back, but he came up empty.

So we improvised. Round, rectangular, what difference does it make? It all tastes the same, right?

And as far as that goes, it was good but not great. We used pre-made crusts and canned filling and you can tell. Don’t get me wrong - I still had a piece for lunch, and will probably have another slice or two before the day is up. But I think the next time I want to take the easy way out pie-wise, I’ll just do my usual thing of throwing a Mrs. Smith’s Apple Pie into the oven. Those are delicious.

When not baking, I flipped leisurely through Sue Heaser’s new book, and the boys tried on their clearance costumes from yesterday. The two hours ended when the oven timer beeped, the little people scurried off almost immediately to watch their new Backyardigans DVD, and I (who really am no better when it comes to screen time these days) flipped open the laptop, did a quick email check, and processed my pie-making photos. It’s probably pretty sad that we find ourselves twitching when the tv and computers are taken away, and I think for all of our sakes, I’m going to institute more of these screen-free times. I’d like to see more baskets of books in strategic places around the house. I’d love to find the boys engaged in a good story sometimes, instead of bathing in the blue glow of the computer screen. Aidan has been able to read since he was four years old, but he considers it more of a utilitarian skill than something that can bring him pleasure. Eamonn is learning to read now, too, and while it’s hard to deny the contribution that tv and computer games have made toward that goal, I think I’d like for his reading vocabulary to extend beyond play, quit, bonus features, and scene selection.

It could be worse. Most of the games they play on the computer have significant educational value. When they watch TV, they are watching either PBS, or DVDs from our collection. And often (as is this case this very minute) the TV seems to just be there for background noise. A few minutes ago, they set the language to French (on purpose), quickly got bored because they couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, and proceeded to play some imaginative game completely unrelated to what the French Backyardigans were doing. This kind of thing happens a lot. So, they’re not playing shoot-em-up games all day or being barraged with harmful advertising, but they are missing things with their eyes on the screen so much. I need to think about ways to restructure our days and minimize the amount of time we spend being passively entertained, and now is a good time to do it, while I’m working on tasks, calendars & scheduling.

As for me, I have some business-related work to take care of this afternoon, but I am craving some more screen-free time. I’m going to drag the vacuum down to the family room, crank up some Polka Dot Radio nice and loud, and do something physical (not to mention useful) with my time! Actually, forget Polka Dot Radio for the moment - I have this strange desire for Christmas music suddenly. Maybe I’ll indulge in a little Christmas Broadband for a while.

I hope you’ll pardon me now. There are halls to deck!

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So the lawn guys were here today cleaning up two weeks-worth of leaves. They did a great job on the lawn, the sidewalk and the driveway. And speaking of the driveway, guess where most of the driveway leaves got blown? Yeah, oh so conveniently onto the car. And up against the garage door. Neil was so amused he snapped a few pictures.

Amusingly enough, the head of the lawn guys lives next door, and when he looked out the window and saw what our car looked like, he came over and fixed it. And probably had a “discussion” with one of his employees. Heh.

I’ve got a bunch of new magazines in stock and covers to scan, but there’s a child sleeping in the same room as the scanner tonight - I had to separate the two little chatterboxes, or they’d never go to sleep. Guess I’ll just flip through the magazines and make note of the polymer clay articles for now and scan the covers another day.

Tomorrow is going to be dominated by Halloween-related activities. Man, I wish I liked this holiday. At least I have a snazzy new skirt to wear. I think maybe I need a fun skirt like this for every holiday…

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I have these days where I know there is work to be done. Days where I have a glorious four hours of time alone. Time alone that could do serious damage to my to-do list. But something distracts me. Something makes me spend my four hours doing other things. Things that feel like fun at the time, but then later make me less-than-proud of my actions.

I’m not talking about anything sinister or sundry. No, it’s really just something that I’ve been prone to all of my adult life - doing “work” that doesn’t need to be done, simply because it’s fun, regardless of the important work that does need to be done. This morning I found a tool that would help me splice together three different feeds so that I could offer one single Polka Dot Radio feed that would let subscribers know when there is a new blog post as well as when there has been an update to the station’s playlist. Is that a cool thing to have? Oh, yeah! Could my radio station have lived without it for another few days, weeks, or months? Most certainly.

I didn’t spend my entire four hours playing around with radio-related things, but I did spend more than half of it that way. And when I skip my morning shower in favor of turning on my laptop, and when I get lured into blowing off a task list so that I can tinker with code, it sets a precedent for the day. No matter how many times I said to myself today that I would put down the computer after such-and-such a time and concentrate on other things, it was an uphill battle all the way. I did the bare minimum - straightened up the living room & dining room, processed new orders & payments, and finally took that shower. Other than that, there were feeds to play with, blogs to read, and Moo cards to order.

When I’ve had a productive day, but productive in an “I did what I wanted and shirked all other responsibilities” kind of way, it leaves me feeling like I somehow cheated my way through the day, and that I’ve probably missed some of the better moments having my nose buried in my laptop.

The day wasn’t a total loss. I did orchestrate a small treasure hunt for Aidan to do when he came home from school. At the end of the hunt was his favorite snack waiting for him. He loved that. And tonight the four of us sat on the boys’ beds daydreaming about a fun trip we could take this weekend. Aidan wants to stay in a hotel, and while that is probably a cost-prohibitive diversion, I think we can manage to replicate some of the great things about hotel-stays right here at home. Making plans has a way of pulling one out of their self-absorbed doldrums. It’s optimistic thinking infused with enthusiasm, and one can’t help but feel better in its wake.

The high lasted all of 5 minutes before I found myself sitting downstairs on the couch, one eye on the TV, the other on my laptop. I was reading some of my favorite crafty mom blogs, and while often I find them uplifting and inspirational, that is not the case when I’ve had a slacker kind of day. Seeing all of these women who make beautiful things and find creative and special moments with their children gave me this feeling of terrible inadequacy. I found myself wondering what I’ve missed with my nose in the computer so much. Why wasn’t I outside pushing the boys on the swing, or taking a walk in the crunchy leaves today? The winter will be here before I know it and I’ll wonder where the fall went. Where did it go? It left, while I was being picky about an irrelevant rss feed and reading about other people’s lives.

The final straw for me was reading about Stefani’s muffins. Her kids were enjoying homemade muffins for breakfast in a tee pee they’d made together in the yard. A stray thought crossed my mind: “how nice it would be to give the boys something homemade for breakfast instead of the usual pop tart.” I almost dismissed it like I’d lazily dismissed all other thoughts just like it today, until I paused. What, exactly, was I doing right now that was so important? Was I particularly interested in what was on TV? No. Could I really enjoy any more crafty mom blogs while I was in this dark place? No. Is 9:15 too late to start baking? Well, usually, but not tonight.

So now I blog as the smell of a recipe I’d never tried before wafts through the house. Awash in a sea of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger I feel more in balance right now than I have all day. Pumpkin Biscotti cooling on the counter, I’m ready to think ahead to a better day tomorrow. Tomorrow I will tackle that task list. Tomorrow I will be open to putting aside the laptop for a little real living. And tomorrow I will greet the boys with a smile and we will have cookies for breakfast.

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My creepy, larger-than-life podcasting pose, at that. No, I haven’t started a podcast. I love to listen to them, but I can’t imagine my place being at the helm of one. So what’s with the headset, then? This was me two weeks ago, when I was chatting with Ilysa Bierer and Kira Slye of Polymer Clay Productions. It was an honor to be interviewed, and if you are reading this, Ilysa & Kira, I thank you! (And I promise to get that headset back to you as soon as I can find three minutes to dig up a box!)

If you’re interested in listening to the interview, you can check it out here.

You know how you always can come up with better ways to say things after a conversation is over? Well, maybe you don’t, but I am intimately familiar with that feeling. After playing the podcast and hearing myself speak, I realized that I didn’t say too much to embarrass myself, which is a really nice realization to have But I do think that maybe I trivialized my book store a bit. It really is a lot more than just a way to “pay for my clay so I can play.” Like many polymer clay enthusiasts, I have a serious affliction when it comes to new books, videos, and anything that gives me the opportunity to see what people are making. It’s an exciting feeling to see the UPS truck pulling in the driveway when I know some new book is on the way. I’ve been known to squeal and jump up and down in the living room, which may not be dignified behavior, but who cares?! Besides my obvious love for the products I sell, I really enjoy the connections I’ve made in the community as a result of having this business. Given how much I love seeing new books & videos come in, is it any surprise that I get excited to share them? I know I have complained long and hard about packing orders around here, but if there is one bright spot, one shining beacon of enjoyableness in that task, it is that I know I am sending a little package of inspiration someone’s way.

I was asked what my business plans are for the future, and my feeling is that I will continue for as long as

• I have an interest in polymer clay and a need to create things with it
• The business can sustain itself financially (we could never survive on this, but so far it’s not costing us anything)
• I can run the business without negatively impacting my family life
• I am happy running it

So there’s my little addendum to the interview. Other than that, I am happy to let it stand as-is. Neil commented to me (in jest. I think…) that I made it sound like I neglect our children in the course of being crafty and having a business. Anyone who reads this blog knows, though, that once in a while I do dust the little darlings off, take them out and play with them No, if anything is getting neglected, it is the kitchen. And maybe the husband.

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The Flylady zone this week is the dining room - the place where I keep many of my crafty things.  So I spent my 15 minutes in there today going through my fabric and putting all of the nice stuff in a single bin.  I decided then and there that I would not exceed the boundaries of that space.  If I wanted to buy more fabric, I would have to make something with what I already have first.  Or sell what I’ve decided not to use.

It sounded good at the time.  But two chubby Priority Mail envelopes appeared this afternoon in my mailbox.  Yeah, I caved last week and ordered some material for Fall napkins.

And some for year-round napkins, when there’s  no season I’m in the mood to celebrate.  And the leftover fabric will be used for Christmas gifts.  I can’t wait to cut into all of this, but I’ll have to.  Duty calls this week.

If I can’t fit these new collections in the bin, or make napkins with them right away, I think I know someone who can give them a purpose for a while…

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This is everything I ate yesterday. Wait - what’s that sound? Why, it’s the collective gasp-in-horror from all of the motherly-types out there reading this. My own mother scolded me in the comments for this photo on flickr. She knows me pretty well - you’d think she’d have realized by now that I eat like some kind of carb-addicted salt fiend whenever possible. Neil has made feed-bag and salt-lick jokes at my expense many times. Don’t worry, I don’t take that kind of abuse lying down. I usually take it sitting up, Dr. Pepper in one hand, other hand halfway down the throat of a pretzel bag. Heh.

So, anyway, when I saw that Laura of Katydiddys was having a Weight Loss Challenge, I thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt to jump on that bandwagon. Now, if you recall, less than two weeks ago, I grabbed the tailpipe of the Flylady bandwagon, and I’m still hanging on. I’m not really sure I can stand on both wagons at once without incurring a nasty groin injury (just how much self-improvement can one girl take?), but I’m going to give it a shot.

Week one’s challenge is twofold:

1. Keep a food diary, including a visual record (hence the photo above), and be artistic about decorating the diary. I have a nifty little software program on my Palm that helps me keep track of Weight Watchers points, so I plan to use my Palm instead of a physical journal, but I am considering making some kind of decorative sleeve for it, so that I get to stretch my artistic muscles.
2. Go for a 30-minute walk alone every day. This is going to be really hard for me. Thechallenge began two days ago and I still haven’t done it. I almost did it this morning, but after filling up four huge garbage bags of unwanted garments and lugging them to the van [see Flylady reference above] I figured I’d gotten all of the exercise I wanted for now. The thing is, the goal of the exercise challenge is not only to get moving, but also to have some peaceful time out in nature to help the creative juices flow. I love that idea. In theory. I just need my legs to get the message and take me outside…

Part of the challenge involves getting hooked up with a partner. Your jobs are to support each other, send each other encouraging little things in the mail, etc. My partner is Kara of Innocent Charms, who, coincidentally, just won the color challenge the other day. Small world, eh? So wish us luck over the next 6 weeks - my goal is to lose 10 lbs, which may or may not be attainable in that time. Hopefully I can stick with it long enough to find out.

Oops - gotta go get this little stinker from preschool!  Hopefully I’ll be back later to chat about creative things.

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Admitting it is the first step, right?  You see, I made these 26 napkins at the height of summertime from a fabric collection called “Elsie’s Kitchen.”  I loved them for their fun, retro look.  I still love them for that, and we use them exclusively - I haven’t bought paper napkins in months.  They feel so nice and soft, having been through several washes now.

But there is a problem.  While I slather cream cheese on my pumpkin muffin and slurp up my hot apple cider, I am finding it “jarring” to dab my lips with a napkin devoted to lemonade, cherries, and summertime fun.   Shoot.  When I made these, I didn’t think of them as seasonal at all.  But then, when I made these, I wasn’t watching leaves flutter by the windows or listening to acorns hit the roof.

I’m going to have to face it - I need Fall napkins.  And I need them in a fun fabric collection with the same “vibe” as these.  How hard could that be to find, right?   And you know what’s coming next, don’t you?  Clearly I’m going to need Christmas napkins.  And maybe just general Winter napkins, too.  sigh.

I imagine Neil is planning an intervention for me as we speak…

I should be asking if anyone knows of a good 12-step program, but instead I think I’m going to ask: does anybody know of any fun seasonal fabric collections that will also make good napkins?  Leave a comment, if you do

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It seems that my favorite time of year has arrived. The house is filled with the quintessential smell of fall - fresh-baked pumpkin bread. If your house doesn’t smell like this today, why don’t you take my recipe and see if you can rectify that, hm?

I welcomed autumn this morning with the very first hot apple cider of the season, and I nursed that mug all afternoon, refilling and re-heating as necessary.

The cornerstone of the First Day of Fall Ritual is, of course, the baking of the pumpkin bread. I was hoping to have some little helpers, but they preferred to watch a Netflix movie. That’s ok. I cranked up the music and enjoyed myself anyway.

Much to Neil’s chagrin, the other very important aspect of the First Day of Fall Ritual is the giving away of the baked bread. Lest you think I am heartless, I’m letting him keep the muffins The four little loaves, however, are destined for gift-giving. I have been doing this every year for at least twelve years, and ever since the kids have been school-age, the recipients have been teachers. I have to admit that I often drop the ball on end-of-year teacher gifts and some of the other more traditional holidays, but I always have a First Day of Fall loaf of bread to give, and maybe that makes up for it somehow.

This year’s loaves are going to three teachers and a bus driver. The teachers are also getting polymer clay pens and the bus driver is getting a polymer clay leaf pin - all in the Autumn color scheme, of course I made little gift cards from orange computer paper, and a computer sticker. I used some pigment inks to add a little interest, and then doodled on them a little bit with an ultra fine point sharpie. Then I tied everything together with a length of twine.

Before we know it, there will be crunching leaves underfoot, knitted sweaters, cozy blankets on our laps, brilliant foliage, and that crisp smell in the air that only fall can bring. I look forward to drinking in all of those wonderful autumn treats and savoring them as long as I possibly can, until winter arrives.

Happy Fall, my friends!

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Normally, that is not a phrase used to describe me, but it has been a busy day and will continue to be a busy night. Today I…

Went to the farm for apples, a cute little pumpkin and zinnias. I peppered my house with little containers full of flowers.  I took my picture for Self Portrait Thursday.

I de-fingerprinted some woodwork, straightened up the visible areas of the house, put on my apron, and made an apple crisp to share with my afternoon guests (mother, grandmother, aunt).

Eamonn and I entertained said guests with Netflix coupons and Where’s Waldo books. Perhaps my family is easily amused?

I ran errands, waited for buses, and got mail.

Tonight I get back to the order processing I started last night. It’s been much slower-going than it should be. Must. get. through. email! Am I, perhaps, in slow motion this week? I have 1589 unread feeds in my Google Reader, so it would seem that I am not wasting time in my traditional way… and yet, time is clearly passing me by.  Thursday. Already.  Wow.

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As I sit here unintentionally getting high off of shower mildew remover fumes, I thought I’d introduce you to the new Polka Dot Creations mascot. His name is Herb. Ok, actually not, but Neil just sent me a link to this guy - isn’t he funny? He’s a recent deep sea discovery and you can read more about him at National Geographic.

I wish I could wax poetic about where I’ve been the last few days, but alas I can’t come up with any interesting way to say I threw out some of the boys’ old socks, re-organized my medicine cabinet, killed 15 yellow jackets, attended Aidan’s Back to School Night, ferried people here and there, and tried desperately to light a fire under myself to process a backlog of orders in the half an hour I had left after doing all of the other things. Believe me, I tried to come up with a fun post, as my head hit the pillow last night, but all that came to me was the sudden thought that a crossover Due South / X-Files episode would be really weird. I couldn’t imagine there being much of a chemistry between Benton Fraser and Fox Mulder… Although I suppose maybe Mulder would have some interest in the fact that Fraser frequently sees his father’s ghost. The Truth is Out There. Thank You Kindly.

I need to stop drinking before bed

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Originally published at Polka Dot Creations. Please leave any comments there.

To borrow a phrase from Aidan, “THAT’s it!” (It’s very important that there be much emphasis on the word “that’s” if you want to get the full effect.) There are parts of my house that are scary-messy. Not just messy. Scary-messy. So I’m getting back on the Flylady bandwagon. Well, not completely. I may just ride sidecar. Here’s what I’m thinking:

I already am doing some of her morning routine stuff, in particular starting a load of laundry every day. What I want to add is a couple of 15-minute cleanups and some zone work. I should have no problem fitting that into my schedule, I just have to do it.

I thought it might help me to photograph the process. Goodness knows I’ve become a flickr junkie, so if I tie this cleanup process into that, maybe I can have a better chance at success, right? Maybe. My plan is to do a 15-minute cleanup in the current zone every day as well as the daily missions. And then, assuming I am still all gung-ho about this, I’d like to do another 15 minutes in whatever area of the house is screaming for it at the time. I’ll take before and after pictures in each zone and for each mission and post them in my newly-created Flylady set.

This week is Zone #3 - The Main Bathroom and One Other Room. The “other room” they suggest you work on this time around is a kid’s bedroom, so I’m going to take that suggestion. The boys are living in a little pig sty all their own amid the larger disaster area that is our home and it would be nice to tackle that. So, I’ve taken my “before” pictures, which you can see above, and I’ve done my 15 minutes in each room (already, quite a difference, but you can’t see any pictures until the end of the week ) and done my mission in each room. If you’re dying to see how well I cleaned the base of my toilet, you can go to flickr for that. I don’t want to sully the pristine pages of this blog with an image so heinous as that of my hairy toilet before I took a bottle of Windex to it…

If any of you here are recognizing some of your own slob-like tendencies in me, consider this your invitation to join me. I’ve created a flickr group for this purpose.  Nothing is a better motivator to clean than the embarrassment of letting people see what a mess you live in. Think about the mad dash you make around the house, shoving things in closets, when you hear that your mother-in-law is on her way over. Yeah, you know you do that Snapping a few shots of your crumb-laden carpet and posting it all over flickr is the same kind of motivator. You want nothing more than to vacuum that sucker and post an “after” shot that says “see? I took care of it - all better now!” At least, I am counting on it working that way. Heh. If it doesn’t, I’m doomed to walk in crumbs for the rest of my days.

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Originally published at Polka Dot Creations. Please leave any comments there.

I don’t remember if I posted about this before, but last Thursday was Aidan’s first day of school, and I decided it was also my first day of the new Fall routine. And I did great. I got up, took a shower, started a load of laundry, got the kids fed, walked Aidan to the bus stop, came back and moved the laundry to the dryer, cleaned the kitchen, put away the laundry in my bedroom that had been stacked on my dresser the entire summer, and folded & put away the newest load of laundry. All before lunch. I spent the afternoon doing business-related tasks, planning the week’s menu, and creating my food shopping list.

Friday was Eamonn’s first day, and it was really just an open house, drop in and play for an hour kind of thing. I got the laundry started that day, but pretty much did nothing else I was supposed to do, I was that derailed from having to spend the morning out.

The weekend was useless routine-wise, as it always is.

Today, Monday, was orientation at Eamonn’s school (they really seem to go a little overboard in easing the kids into it there…) so it was another morning out of the house. I had started the laundry before we left, but again found myself completely out of the whole routine mindset. I’m happy to report that I did gain back a smidge of my momentum after lunch. I managed to do the food shopping for which I had made that list back on Thursday, and that’s something.

I have high hopes for tomorrow. Eamonn doesn’t have school on Tuesdays, and I don’t have anyplace to be in the morning. It sure would be nice to have another day like Thursday…

YAWN!

Nothing more thrilling than talking about housework, eh? Maybe if I actually do some housework tomorrow, I will reward myself with some crafty time and can post the fruits of my labor. I read somewhere that this was supposed to be a crafty blog

Oh!  I keep forgetting to mention this! Do you Twitter?  I do now and then.  Feel free to follow me.  The mundane fascinating little bits of my life that are too small for a blog post sometimes end up there.   When I think of it.  If I feel like it.  It’s pretty casual.

And lastly, someone I’ve known for several years online is facing a cancer diagnosis.  If you are the praying type and would like to keep her in your thoughts I’m sure it would be appreciated.

Now, off to catch  up on my email.  It has this nasty habit of multiplying when I’m not looking…

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Originally published at Polka Dot Creations. Please leave any comments there.

I never liked grilled cheese growing up. In fact, I was nearly 30 years old before I realized I could actually enjoy eating it. The trick for me was to avoid processed American cheese and instead use a slice of yummy, spicy pepper jack. Additionally, I found I liked using homemade bread. My favorite for this purpose? Zucchini Bread from Beth Hensperger’s Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. Have I mentioned yet how much I love this book? If my bread machine and I were stranded on a desert island with only one book for company, it would be this one.

This Zucchini Bread is not the quickbread most people think of when they hear that name. It’s actually a yeast bread made with a combination of white and wheat flours. I like that it’s got a vegetable built right into it, because I really don’t get enough vegetables. And the best part? You can’t even taste the zucchini

Here’s a version of the recipe that I made today. It’s slightly different from the Zucchini Bread as written only because I wanted to use what I had and save myself a trip to the store.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups milk
• 1 cup shredded zucchini
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cups white wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon gluten
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Directions

Dump the ingredients in the bread machine in the proper order, set for the basic cycle and let it do its thing. (I’m paraphrasing here…)

So. School starts tomorrow. Can’t say I’m that upset… We had some nice times this summer (and I’ve got <