An Apple a Day...

Well, now that it's just about time to get out the Halloween decorations, I thought I would share a post about a wreath I made right around the time school started back up. Right about the time my life became not mine again. Right about the time I started having almost no time to blog. But I digress.

While walking the aisles at Wal Mart the other day, I noticed these beautiful, bright red, FAKE apples in the floral section. You know, the section you never walk down because you don't really need any fake daisies at the moment. I am happy to report there are treasures abounding in that aisle. Everything you see here came from that aisle. I bought a grapevine wreath, the red FAKE apples, four packages of yellow grass-looking stuff, and one package of green grass-looking stuff. I also bought floral wire and those wire pick things for the apples because I don't have them just laying around my house. (I know, what self-respecting crafter doesn't have that stuff just laying around the house?) I took them home and got out the trusty old hot glue gun and worked away. The best thing about this project was that I got to have an hour long conversation with a dear friend on the phone while I was doing it. How's that for multi tasking?

If I had really been thinking straight, I would have taken pictures of the step by step instructions for this kind of wreath. But I was too wrapped up in my conversation to be really thinking straight. So here's what I did, in non-photographed order:

1. Lay a small bunch of the yellow wheat-grass onto the wreath form and wire around with floral wire. The grass I used was very fine, so it would not stay on its own just with the wire. I put a little bit of hot glue on the grass and laid the next section of grass's ends on top of the hot glue and then wired it a little further up on the grass.

2. Continue all the way around the wreath, spreading out the grass a little bit as you go to make it look like a fan.

3. Take smaller sections of green wheat-grass and lay on top of the yellow sections, wiring and gluing all the way around the wreath.

4. Insert wire picks into the bottoms of the FAKE apples. Insert pick into the wreath form through the grass, and then hot glue the bottom of the apple to where you want it to hang on the wreath, just for extra stability. You can also add a little bit of glue to the end of the pick, but you really don't need it. Continue with all the apples all the way around the wreath.

5. Find a cute spool of ribbon in your craft room (I used light green gingham wired ribbon), thread it through the wreath, tie a big old bow at the top and artfully hang the ends of ribbon down. Trim the ends of the ribbon into a chevron, or inverted V. Hang it on your door for the PTA ladies to see when they come to your house.

This was actually a really fun project to do. I had always seen those Martha Stewart segments on her old show where she would make wreaths and do this stuff, and I never thought I had the time to do them. They do take time, but the avenue for creativity is open and you can come up with some amazingly darling things if you just take an hour and play around with some hot glue.

A Sea, A Sea, My Kingdom for a Sea....

My husband's day off is Tuesday. Which means that every Tuesday, without fail, I overschedule myself to try and fit in all the things I need to do that week in one day so I can take advantage of the free babysitting. This week I came home from hours of I don't even know what to find a sea of blue striped wrapping paper in the living room. I'm talking a whole roll of Costco wrapping paper. I walked up to my husband with an incredulous look on my face. "What on earth is this huge mess?" I gaped. "Oh, we had a great time while you were gone," he smiled. Obviously.

Moms look at things differently than Dads. What is to a Mom a huge mess or accident waiting to happen is Dad's opportunity for fun and memories. What to a Mom is an chance to teach responsibility for yourself by cleaning up your huge mess is to a Dad something to leave around for the rest of the day in case you want to play with it again. This is the beauty of family. We balance each other out. And not just the parents. Siblings do it, too.

For example, Sam is pretty much a one track minded kid, and I mean that literally. He loves trains. He loves building miles of tracks and will play by himself for hours if you let him. Maggie loves people, so she is always asking Sam to play with her and getting him to laugh with her and hug her. He, in turn, has taught her to appreciate the finer points of Thomas the Tank Engine.

My oldest daughter is sloppy and messy, and my second oldest is neat and tidy. Oldest doesn't care what people think about her and younger is so sensitive she rarely makes it through the school day without tearing up. The other day, oldest decided to write youngest a letter, telling her about all the things oldest thought were totally awesome about youngest. The change in youngest has been palpable. Abby didn't think twice about telling Emma she was smart and insightful and clean and loving because she doesn't care what Emma thinks about her. Emma will always treasure these words from her big sister because she does care what Abby thinks about her. It's the perfect marriage of personality.

Sometimes we fight in our family. It's bound to happen. Seven different personalities under one roof? I call that MTV's Real World. People pay good money to watch that on TV. But when we are fighting, I try to remember this sea of paper and remember that we all are helping each other in ways we don't recognize because we are different. The love and fond memories that come from destroying a whole huge roll of wrapping paper are important ones. As well as the lesson learned by cleaning up when Mom comes home.

Nearing the End of an Era

This is what I did today. I cleaned out the drawer that I have loathed for 12 years. The sippy cup drawer. And sadly, when I cleaned these out of there and decided to throw them away, I felt grief. I was actually going to miss washing, matching lids (very important!) filling and delivering chocolate milk to my two boys with these. There was a heaviness in my chest as I looked at them all lined up on the counter. I've still got some sippy cups, don't you worry. But the remainders have princesses and Minnie Mouse on them. And they are rarely used. My littlest girl doesn't really care for sippy cups. She wants to be big like all the rest of the people around here. So I put these into a bag, and then, I sat them on the floor of my pantry behind the garbage can. Not in it, behind it. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of these little reminders of my boys being little.

Mind you, I'm way overdue to do this job. Wyatt is 7 1/2. Sam is 5. No one should be using a sippy cup at these ages, I'll admit. But the clean freak inside of me thinks my carpet is better off having used them all these years. I'm just not as good as other moms at keeping food only inside of my kitchen. And, to be honest, I like to remember the times when they first started using sippy cups and we got rid of our ba-ba's. It was such a step into big-kidhood when we threw those bottles away. But I was sad then, too. As a mother, you get a first hand look at all the stages of childhood, and some of those stages seem to drag on forever. When you're up to your elbows in multiple diaper changes, feedings, and nighttime waking, it seems like those days will never end. You sort of lose the forest for the trees sometimes. But those days do end. You move on from Blues Clues to Star Wars, from blocks to Legos, from baby to boy. And when you get sad about your children changing seemingly overnight, just take a picture of the sippy cups, look at it with some pictures of your babies, and have a good cry.

Eight Years Later

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time. It was taken by Thomas E. Franklin of The Record in Bergen County, N.J. I remember the first time I saw it I really needed to see a picture like this. It came after two days of seeing the unthinkable became reality. My eyes teared up and I was proud to be a member of my country. I felt relief, knowing there were people out there who carried on in the face of despair. I felt grim determination to keep on doing whatever good I could wherever I was. And I knew that I would never look at life in the same way again. Thank you, whoever you are. Thank you, Mr. Franklin.

The Hidden Treasure

I was walking around my house the other day looking for my three year old who was entirely too quiet. After looking all over the top floor of my house, I decided to give up and go downstairs. Then something caught my eye. A shape that looked a little familiar was on the ground where my bedspread was. I carefully walked up to it and felt it. It was warm. I peeled back the edge of the blanket and there she was, safely wrapped in Mom's bedspread, oblivious to the fact that she was asleep on the floor. I was overcome with peace looking at this little bundle of person. For a moment I wished I was the one blissfully sleeping the afternoon away. Then I wanted to lay down on the carpet and snuggle with her, because she's so grumpy when she's awake that the only time she's loving and tender it seems is when she's asleep. Then I was glad she was resting, and crept off to do another job or something totally unimportant. I'm so glad I found this hidden treasure. It made me think of all the things or people I just walk right by so many times a day that I don't appreciate. I take for granted the many things that I have right here next to me and continue to wish for better things that don't matter. My materialism is rearing it's ugly head right now. There are so many things I would like to do, so many items I'd like to have, that I get caught up in how many pennies it will take for me to reach my goals of getting stuff. And I walk right by the thing I'm looking for because it's covered in the everyday. Making a point of looking for the hidden treasure is what takes talent. Spending time with little kids who love you even though you have a messy kitchen takes time. Doing what is smart with your money instead of being frivolous and spending it on things you want is difficult. But they are all worth doing and all will bring more happiness than a house full of stuff that doesn't look sweet when it's sleeping.