Rejected names for today's Polly Pocket Happy Meal Toy

"We're so cheap we make the little anklebiters attach the stickers themselves."

" Polly Sarcophagus"

"Buried Alive"

"Disco Crucifixion"

"I must! I must! I must increase my bust!"

"Cramp! Cramp! OwOwOwOw!"

"Yes, those pants make your ass look huge"

and, my personal favorite: "Jamie Lynn Spears, before and after the baby"

Work Day 7/Calendar Day 9 - muddy drawers

Look, Ma! No visible drywall tape or screws! And a partially-assembled sink base!

Look, Ma! A 30" base cabinet with 4 drawers, which will sit to the right of the stove and hold pots, pans, and cooking gadgets that have until recently been confined to the purgatory that is The Closet Of Infrequently Used Kitchen Stuff!
Look, Ma! Some things are beautiful when covered with newfallen snow!
Look, Ma! Some things are still ugly, even when covered with newfallen snow!

(notice I was nice enough to shovel a path to the potty for Kevin, today's Contractor du Jour? That's because I'm a softy at heart.)

By the numbers

• Inches of snow on the ground before 9:30 this morning: 3ish
• Time it takes to get Liza and I into snowsuits to go outside to shovel the walk so the contractors can make it to our door: 10 minutes
• Time it takes to shovel the walk so the contractors can make it to our door: 5 minutes
• Time it took the walk to snow back in after being shoveled: 10 minutes
• Times the snowplow had done our street when we left for Liza's gym class this morning: 0
• Times I had to scrape all the windows on the van this morning before I left for the gym: 2
• Times on the way to the gym when I had to point the car in the right general direction and pray that's where the skid would take me: 4
• Approximate number of miles of plowed roads between our house and the gym: 0.01 (the driveway and parking lot at the gym)
• Times I had to scrape all the windows on the van after the gym class and after visiting Wal-Mart: 2
• Times my antilock brakes kicked in on the way from Wal-Mart to our house: 3
• Times the snowplow had done our street when we returned from Liza's gym class this morning: 0
• Inches of snow on the ground right now: 6ish
• Lazy Mama work time I'm going to waste using the snowblower, despite the forecast for more snow this afternoon: 45 minutes
• Current temperature in the city where Jason is: 60F

Day 6 (or 8 if you're counting calendar days, not working days)

Action shot! Guess who passed the rough electrical inspection this morning? I've got the viciously sticky stickers on my window to prove it, and a whole lot of new drywall.

"Look, you don't see any studs other than the ones I'm paying by the hour."

Continuing the vicious cycle of making my living room a completely useless disaster area, I bring you ... our hardwood flooring!
Drywall hanging took longer than expected, so they only assembled one cabinet today :(
But I'm a positive thinker - they have now assembled precisely 1/3 of the number of drawers I had in the previous kitchen (and one of those was only accessible when the dishwasher was open ... gahhh). And the new drawer is very accessible, what with not having any countertop on the cabinet yet :) And one of the guys pointed out that if they install the lower cabinets first, they can get the template for the Corian done sooner, which means I can get my sink back sooner, so it's a good thing that I sorted out the pieces for the base cabinets first. Hurrah for midnight mistakes! Hurrah for contractors who actually think about what their customers need to remain sane!

It doesn't matter to me that they're only 1/11th of the way through assembling the cabinets for the new design. Really.

... deep breaths ... put down the cordless screwdriver and back away slowly ... remember that Mom and Dad are going to be installing two Ikea kitchens later this year, and I'm sure they'd love to have my help when they do it. Right, enabler?

#1 way to convince your husband to buy a new couch

Make him be the one to research reupholstery prices on Angie's List.

After I found the smelling salts and revived him, he allowed as how it might make sense to pitch the urine-soaked couch with cushions that have been washed so many times they are literally falling apart at the seams, instead of paying $700 (plus the cost of fabric) to reupholster or slipcover it.

Praise the Lord and pass the Ethan Allen catalog!

Do you think there's a 12-step program for me?

You know how strong the Ikea assembly addiction is? We spent the night at some friends' house last night, partially to keep me from messing with the stuff in the living room.

Of course, the gigantic meal they cooked for us (ham! sweet potato casserole! fresh biscuits!) and the hours of gaming after the kids went to bed might have had something to do with the decision to go over there, but the Ikea Avoidage was definitely a factor. So very sad, my life is.

Oo, this is cool

I'm the number one listing that shows up if you google "pleather Docksiders"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pleather%20docksiders

I knew those pink nightmares would be good for something other than daily junior high school humiliation.

Dang, I have to clean the keyboard again

http://listoftheday.blogspot.com/2007/09/great-olan-mills-photos.html

Stupid Diet Pepsi with Lime is so hard to get out from between the keys (and out of my nose).

cabin fever

Liza has been getting the crazies every evening just about the time I need to start fixing dinner, and they last pretty much until we hit her on the head with a hammer to make her "sleep" around 9pm. They only got worse once we started packing up the living room and dining room stuff, to the point where she's been running around like a maniac, bouncing off of walls, especially right after dinner.

Last week we got in the habit of having Jason take care of the dishes while I devoted my full attention to keeping the kid from ending up in the ER. Her favorite games at the time was jumping in and out (and in and out and in and out) of the "swimming pool" made inside my legs when I sat on the floor with the soles of my feet together, and "riding the train." At some point she told me she wanted to dive into the pool, and she would have done it, too, if I hadn't tackled and redirected.

So introducing "cliff diving" was the logical next step, right? Because there are worse ways to burn off energy than doing somersaults off a side chair onto some sofa cushions.

And then, of course, we had to go for distance.

And height.

Jumping over sofa cushions - the game the whole family can play!

So remember when Liza was little and screamed 24/7 and I would occasionally refer to her as evil or possessed? Well, you be the judge. I'd say the comparison is pretty good.

(Couldn't find a shot of her on top of the building at the end of the movie with her hair blowing around her. Trust me, it's the same as Liza's, only brown and more moussey).

Day 5: I couldn't take it anymore

Today is apparently a day of rest, as the building inspector is out of the office and can't be reached to schedule an inspection, the contractors are at another site, and the kid went down for a nap ridiculously early. So there's really nothing new to show you in the kitchen ... but that doesn't mean I'm at a loss for discussion topics :)

The contractors are supposed to start assembling the cabinets next week, and I figured it would help out if I went through the supply list to sort things out so that all the parts for each cabinet were in seperate piles. I mean, I'm paying them for skilled labor, not for moving things around in my dining room - I can do that.

So last night as I was shutting off the lights and going up to bed, I picked up the supply list and idly started searching for the pieces for the first cabinet. Thanks to the lovely stacking system the movers used when they delivered the cabinets and the inconsistent label location on the boxes, it is physically impossible to ONLY organize one cabinet, as you have to move pieces for a minimum of four other cabinets just to find one piece of the first cabinet. Plus, it's psychologically impossible for me to leave a job like this half-finished, because what if we were missing a piece in the part I didn't finish? Then I wouldn't have the extra 12 hours to worry about it and figure out how to chew out the Ikea customer service person on the phone the next day.

Ahem. Anyway, an hour and a half later, I had all the pieces for the base cabinets sorted out. There, now doesn't that look better?

We didn't need to use the living room this weekend, anyway.

These boxes have been sitting in a pile (well, three piles and a couple boxes and bags) in my dining room since last Wednesday, and I haven't so much as peeked in a box. This has required an act of supreme willpower on my part, as I am the biggest Ikea Furniture Assembly Junkie in the country, possibly the hemisphere. Not only do I know how to wield an allenwrench, I enjoy it. So leaving my cabinets sit there, unopened and unloved, was as difficult as walking past a Cinnabon after a 3-day fast.
Actually, I think running the Cinnabon gauntlet would be easier.

Come on, I made it for more than a week, and I only put together one easy one to "see how they go together in case I ever need to take them apart later on." Yeah, right.

Unfortunately, kitchen cabinet assembly is like Pringles - you can't stop after just one. I'm going to be twitchy every time I walk past that room all weekend. Maybe I can get Jason to lock up the allenwrenches until he leaves for work on Monday.

Ick

Not sure I should title this one "fun" with the sitemeter, since I just found I'm on the first page of search results if you google "orgy photos." Bet the two people who ended up here after clicking on the link were a little disappointed in what they found.

If you'll excuse me, I have a post title to change.

Day 4 - let there be light

Lots of light. Like, six recessed can lights, a center decorative fixture, and 11 under-counter lights. We're going to have Chicago-bound jets landing in the backyard when we turn on all these suckers ... I'm thinking of installing tanning bulbs and working on my glow while I work on dinner.
It would be nice if the electrical contractors had remembered to put in the outlet for the microwave oven/vent fan, since it needs to be on its own circuit and the inspector is coming tomorrow. See what happens when I don't hover, but leave the professionals to their jobs and pay attention to the kid instead? There's a reason I'm going to be all in the contractor's business from now on ... it's called, "you mess up the schedule, I have to eat in my freakin' basement for an extra week."

Speaking of Liza, here's the princess, doing her Cinderella impression while scrubbing dinner dishes:

What? She's closer to the ground than I am, and it's her sippy cup anyway. Let her wash it.

Oh, and MLF - ha, ha - the port-a-potty is standard procedure for this company, I guess so that they don't track construction dust throughout the rest of the house trying to get to the john. Most of their jobs are in houses that are much larger and more expensive than ours, so I guess it make sense. In our case, though, I'm looking for excuses to ditch most of the carpet anyway, and it's actually closer to go to the bathroom than it is to go outside to the port-a-potty. I tried to persuade them to leave it behind, but it was a no-go. (hee)

Day 3 - Raising property values throughout the neighborhood

Nothing says "class" like a 20-foot-long dumpster in your front yard, unless it's a dumpster, a port-a-potty, AND a satellite dish. If only we had a cement burro and sombrero-wearing Mexican guy, we'd be the highlight of the local architectural tour.

Oh, and did I mention that it poured rain last night? Like, poured rain so hard that the sound of it hitting the siding on the wall behind our bed woke us up multiple times? Good thing we didn't want anything in that dumpster ...

It's actually pretty, if you ignore the fact that the reflection is floating on top of my old sink and what I think was the side of one cabinet.
Or maybe that's part of the underlayment for the kitchen floor. Hard to tell anymore.

Oh, and you know how in horror movies there's always blood dripping down the walls of the haunted houses? Apparently, our resident ghost is an octopus:

All the drilling and shuffling around in crawlspaces and talk of wiring brought back fond memories of Sam the Electrician, who would have taken five times as long to finish this much, but it would have cost half as much.

New patterns in the shop

Now available in my etsy shop: the first new patterns of 2008!

I proudly present the Heart Happy Wall Hanging:

And the Genki Ginkgo Table Runner:

Click on either name to go to the page in the shop where the pattern can be purchased. Hooray for getting things done faster than expected!

Day 2

The junk pile is gone, there's a port-a-potty and a 20-foot dumpster sitting in my driveway, the sink and counter and cabinet are gone, and the tile and drywall is gone. But strangely enough, it looks pretty much like yesterday, only minus the sink, so I'll show you something new instead:First family meal since we moved the "kitchen" to the guest bedroom.

Yes, that's the over-the-stove microwave sitting on the table (it only works if you chock it up on some 1x3s that Jason fished out of the dumpster) with a toaster oven on top.

The mess on the right is the "pantry," or what I think we might actually use when we only have a toaster oven and microwave to cook in. It's sitting on top of the under-the-bed storage boxes full of gift wrap and CDs, which are sitting on top of the pile of mattresses and box springs that used to be the guest beds.

Notice that we're eating real (reheated) food, with vegetables and everything? That's going to go downhill sharply, I'm sure, and by the end of the project we'll probably be licking pizza crumbs off the carpet and drinking out of the toilet.

Not shown: The plastic tote we're using to wash dishes in the bathtub. I just couldn't face the thought of having to clean the tub in order to wash dishes, so a $3 plastic tote was a good investment. Bonus: The dish drainer can sit inside it when I'm done washing, and the whole thing sits inside the upturned lid, so the mattresses don't get (too) wet when we store it downstairs. Now THAT'S planning!

Maybe someday soon I'll show you how the Closet of Useless Kitchen Gadgets was cleared out to make room for lots of paper plates and Tupperware and sippy cups ... oooh, the excitement!

More product reviews

One of the things I like about etsy is that sometimes I am able to find less-expensive versions of toys I see in catalogs. That was the case with the silkies I bought from Beneath the Rowan Tree. I had seen similar scarves in several of the higher-end, granola-friendly toy catalogs, but I finally decided to get them after finding them (slightly) cheaper and handmade.


Basically, it's a set of six different colors of silk scarves, each about a yard square. It doesn't sound like much, but put those in the hands of a two-year-old ("I'm two-and-a-half, not TWO!!!!!") who has recently discovered her imagination, and you'd be surprised to see what happens.


I've been waiting to post this until I could get the video uploaded, because it really helps you understand what a great toy these are. This was what she came up with in the first 20 minutes we played with them:





Since then they've been wrapping paper, and a giant pool to jump into, and giant fish in the giant pool, and a wig, and flags, and ... And this is all since Saturday night. Score!

Day 1

Compare the views of the project at 10am and 4pm today (before the final cleanup for the day). This, my friends, is why you hire professionals and stay the heck out of their way.

Where the fridge is going to go:

Where the stove is going to go:

Where my lovely drawers for pots and pans will go:

Where the sink and dishwasher will go:

Where Liza's little breakfast bar/craft station will be:

View of dining room into the kitchen:

Yes, I have a fridge in my living room, and I'm proud of it! Preview of tomorrow: shots I plan to title "my god, who would buy that wallpaper?" and "wow, and I thought the refaced cabinets were ugly."

T-minus

12 hours and counting. I'm already sick of having the kitchen boxed up. It's gonna be a loooooong six-to-eight weeks.

Taking all the joy out of life

I stuck my head in a little skunk's hole
and the little skunk said, "Well bless my soul!
Take it out! Take it out! Remove it!"

Well, I didn't take it out
and the little skunk said, "If you don't take it out, you will wish that you had.
Take it out! Take it out! Remove it!"

Well, I didn't take it out
and the little skunk said, "pssssssssst!"
I removed it.

It just takes all the joy out of teaching that song to your kid when you have to set aside the first five minutes to explain the inner workings of a skunk so the kid understands why the "psssssssst" is funny. I never pictured myself uttering the words, "So then he sprays stinky stuff out of his butt," at least not while stopped in traffic in front of Chick-Fil-A. Glad that's out of the way ...

Oh, and five bucks says that if you know the tune for this song, it'll be stuck in your head for the rest of today. Bwahahahahahaha!

And even Liza sat in slack-jawed wonder at this one

As a former Bone Babe myself, I know exactly how hard this piece is, and these girls totally kick its ass. You go, girls!

I didn't think I'd like it, but I do

I'm a HUGE fan of the original Music Man movie, the one with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. Robert Preston will always be the music man, as far as I am concerned, despite that ill-advised alien movie in the 1980s.

But when I was desperate for child entertainment today and searched for "Marion the Librarian" (yes, I know it's spelled wrong) on YouTube, I found a Matthew Broderick music man clip. Ferris Beuller as the music man? Surely you jest.

But he's good. Not Robert Preston good - he's not oily enough for that - but good, all the same. And the choreography is charming - close to the original, but with some neat little additions that update it nicely. I could do without the dream sequence, but it's really funny when it ends.

So, without further ado, I give you the "not quite as good as the original, but in some ways better" Marian the Librarian clip.

Lazy Mama pattern used for a class in Delaware!

So, you want to make a Simple Snowflakes Table Runner, but you think you need a little hand-holding?

Why not drop by the Quilter's Hive in Newark, DE, on January 28th to take the class based on my pattern? Call 302-737-5699 to register.

(Thanks to my father's woodworking friend for seeing this - I never would have noticed it on my own. New Year's Resolution #342 - get on the mailing lists for all of my customers' shops.)

Why I love Cleveland in the wintertime

The last snow we got was one of the rare ones where the flakes come down individually and look like something other than a syrupless Slurpee on the lawn. This morning the snow had stopped and the sun had come out, but the last of the snow was still drifting down from the tree branches when the wind blew. It was like living in a snowglobe - the air and ground just sparkled.

On the living room window sill:

Where else can you play in the snow in your pajamas?

The last time I remember seeing this type of snow was in 1996, when Jason and I were living in Pittsburgh for six weeks to train for our first "real" jobs. The day we decided to go to the outdoor ice skating rink after work was the day it decided to dump 3 or 4 inches of individual flakes on us, mostly while we were skating. You could you catch snowflakes on your gloves and examine them closely before they melted, plus it was snowing so fast that it was collecting on the ice. It was deep enough in places that you couldn't see the blades on the skates - just people gliding on top of the snow using only the soles of their ugly boots.

I seem to remember that I had a cold and could barely breathe, at least one of us fell down and got soaked with melted snow, the drive back to our apartment was hellacious, and we were probably freezing our butts off the entire time, but it was still a magical night, one that I'll remember forever as one of the best.

The train bound for hell in a handbag

Okay, who switched the "play imagination games" switch in my daughter to "on"?



Because I'd like them to be the one to have to come ride the train of sofa cushions for 30 seconds (hardly enough time to even work up a good chugga chugga, much less a choooochoooo), then hop up ("stand up faster, Mama!") and visit the awe-inspiring destinations of "the trashcan!" and "the recycle basket!" and "that thing! You mean the lamp? The Lamp!" Every. Single. Afternoon. For at least 30 minutes straight.

You ever try getting up off the floor every 30 seconds for half an hour straight? Screw pilates, I've got the newest workout craze right here, baby.


On the other hand, the sight of my sparkles-and-tulle-clad daughter with the World's Ugliest Handbag slung over her arm pushing a shopping cart loaded full of gyoza and plastic Easter eggs is one of the cutest things I've ever seen. And I got in trouble last night because every time she turned her back, I threw a stuffed tomato at her head, and she told me tomatoes were for eating, not throwing, so I had to go in timeout. That was so cute I could just keel over ... with the added bonus that I got to turn throwing stuffed fruit at my daughter into one of her favorite games! Hooray for lazy parenting!

They're here! They're here! (5 days to go)

According to the packing slip, our new cabinets arrived in 158 separate packages. See why we're paying someone to put them together for us?

Look! She's wearing normal clothes! That's because we got home from the grocery store 5 minutes before the truck pulled up to deliver the cabinets. She was back in fairy princess mode 5 minutes after they left.

And yes, she IS working the Heidi braided pigtails. We've got to do something to keep her hair from getting so tangled, so we're trying this before I shave her bald in a fit of hair-brushing-rebellion-fueled rage.

Kitchen renovation countdown - 6 days to go

While my parents were here over the holidays we totally took advantage of their captive status and convinced them to help us clear stuff out of the dining room and living room so we could paint. The day after Christmas we put away all of the holiday decorations, and we also packed up all the books and china and moved the major pieces of furniture out of the ground floor so we could slap on a coat of Watery.

We painted everything that's going to be left and visible after the contractors knock out a wall next Monday - hurray for kitchen cabinets that will go to the ceiling so I don't have to paint the wall behind them! - which was still acres and acres of wall to paint. It was a lot of work, but it went faster with three people (and a fourth to watch Liza). It also went faster because Jason got to play with his full 18 inches:

of paint roller, that is. Boy, you folks have dirty minds!

Since then we've been gradually shuttling stuff down to the basement and guest room, where it will stay for the next two months while we get the kitchen squared away and the flooring done in the living room, dining room, and entryway. And I've been working my way through the food in the pantry and freezer, trying to make meals out of the stuff I won't be able to cook when I only have access to a microwave and toaster oven.

We've hit the point now where I have to plan carefully to try to get the last stuff used up and still make meals that aren't ridiculously wrong (nachos with teriyaki chicken and mozzarella cheese on top? NO.).

I know we'll be making fried rice for dinner tonight (uses up bacon, leftover ham from freezer, leftover rice from freezer, can of stirfry veggies from pantry, possibly some ratty-looking ginger root left in the fridge), and Jason has requested that one day soon we say "screw the leftovers, we're having salad."

In the pantry I found a package of buffalo wing seasoning mix and a Japanese curry mix, both of which technically will hold forever, but I won't be able to cook either without a full kitchen, so I might as well use them now. The curry will require some fresh meat, but can also use up some of the potatoes in the pantry. The wing mix will use some fresh chicken, but it will help use up the blue cheese dressing we've got in the fridge.

I've got two large boxes of chicken broth that may become some sort of soup, and some tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, and tomato juice that are definitely destined to be tomato soup.

There's a ham bone left from Christmas eve dinner, which I might try to make into some sort of potato/ham chowder, and some barley, brown rice, and regular rice that are probably going to just end up getting shelved.

And then there are the baked goods. I'd like to use up 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin, a cup of frozen blueberries, two cups of frozen peaches, two cups of frozen strawberries, plus a whole bunch of bread flour, regular flour, sugar, and brown sugar. I'm thinking there's a whole lot of coffeecake- and muffin-making in my future for this week.

Meanwhile, Liza has been enjoying all the extra room to run around and play "dance lessons," which involves her hopping around in circles on one foot, encouraging me to do the same.

And it's 2pm and I'm still in my pajamas - hooray for snow days!