grace for you, and me!

Good morning everyone!

Well now. Look at me, finally posting something.  It has been a crazy and busy start to the school year, as I predicted.  I am going to flash back for you (8 years ago) to when I quit my job and decided to stay at home with my kid/kids.  The first week at home I made 5 course meals, a headboard for J's new bed, organized the entire house...and so on.  It took me awhile to calm down. I looked like Martha Stewart with an IV of RedBull. Flash forward a year, I had given myself some grace and mastered the rumored pajama day I had heard about.  I "kind of" did the same thing after I put my youngest, a  kindergartener, on the bus. I thought OK, now its time for me. I then tried to be me, on said IV of redbull.  This week I have been attempting to get ready for an art show I have on Saturday.  This is the week that I got a migraine.  If you suffer from migraines you can commiserate with me. I am thankful that I don't have a "real job" that expects me to show up at a certain time. If  you have seen me this week and I was perhaps driving on the wrong side of the road, talking like a crazy person, or just standing there with my mouth open, my apologies. I think this was God and my body's way of saying....calm it down.
I will still be heading to my show, but with much less art than I had planned on, and that is fine.( said with teeth gritted)  Here is the hard part. I look around at other moms and think, they can do all of that and more. What is wrong with me?? I then read this article that was posted on FB. I LOVED IT. I loved that she took ownership of both the things she is good at AND the bad.
 I think its easier to admit the bad to people and forget all the good you do. STOP read this article first.  
http://www.sowonderfulsomarvelous.com/2013/06/moms-when-are-you-going-to-learn.html

Ok while you read that article, I frantically looked for my youngest childs yellow folder, had a second cup of coffee and refilled my children's account with money so that they can, you know, eat at school, and gave both my dumb dogs Benadryl. They have allergies. :)

After I read the article, a couple times ( I loved it that much) I love the last paragraph about if you want to do_____, Do IT! Don't let people make you feel bad about it. You don't EVER apologize for what you are good at. 
 Then I thought. I want a turn. This is why blogs were created, so here is my turn.

I am artsy. This has been my running theme my whole life. I was always picked first as a partner for group projects because they knew they had someone to make the poster!  Art keeps me sane and has more than once saved me.  I sometimes do downplay how good I am at art. I do it in subtle ways. "That didn't take that long"  "Oh I saw how to do that online". All sort of picking away at a talent God gave me.   This is a work in progress.

I am not the size I want to be.  I am working on that, true statement.
I am not good at multi tasking, I drop the ball a good bit while trying.
I do not volunteer at my kids school.

I am funny.  MAN I am funny. If I weren't me, and was someone else, I would think I was funny, and want to be my friend. Sometimes it takes awhile for people to see it, but its there, and often times inappropriate. I am usually reduced to the company I keep! :)

I hate putting laundry away.  I do not pack my kids lunches. I send them to the cafeteria every day.
I am a great friend, and give well thought out advice.
I am ALWAYS early. If I am late then I am ill or injured.
I am unphased by traffic.
I make tons of crafts with my kids.
I squeeze my toothpaste from the middle, my bathroom counter looks like a war zone.
I hate reading outloud, even with my kids.
I am completely in love with my husband, who I have been with since I was 18.  He is amazing and is horrible at details. I overlook this when I can. :)
My house is rarely clean all at once.
You can come over, if you give me 20 minutes notice to hide all the junk we leave out all the time.

True story.  J had a friend over the other night. This was unplanned  and fun.  I realized her mom would be picking her up soon and my house looked like, well crazy. I looked around and thought, lets address the most crazy things first, then I guess we will just run with it.  I took pictures, knowing I would write this blog post sooner or later. Let me show you.  This is what my kitchen table looks like. No joke.

 

I made no attempts to clean this up. This just is. See the coupon book at the corner, my kid is trying to sell those, if you would like to buy one. :)  

 

This is my family room.  Note the kid sitting on the arm of the couch. eh.

The laundry is obvious. It is at least clean. IT does look better with the ornery dog next to it. Rather than pick myself apart, I have to point out the

curtains. I  made them. Actually my mom sewed them (thanks mom) but if you look close, the pattern on them is my actual handwriting. I wrote the lyrics to 4 of our favorite songs on them over and over

with a  sharpie. Yes it took forever. Yes I'm pretty crazy. Yes I love them.  In case you are wondering the songs are  "You are my sunshine." "Love song- by The Cure"  "Philosophy- by Ben Folds" "Call me Al- Paul Simon"  I can say they are my favorite thing in the whole house. I look past the folded clothes and still love those curtains!  Oh and look at the porcelain peace hand on the mantel. LOVE.

 

 

Here is my kitchen. Lindsay, you have got it TOGETHER. Look at it. damn. Dinner in the crockpot, candles burning. What you don't see is the open bottle of red wine that I hid by the knives. I had it out on the counter earlier painting with the wine. I hid it before the gals mom came over, that way she would be allowed to come over again. :) Explaining to people that I paint with wine is not usually the first conversation I like to have with people! It does sound like a well thought out chat between drunks. It is semi-believable at best, but I promise its the truth. 

Longest story short. give yourself a break. we are awesome!

Use what the good Lord gave ya....

Well folk, summer is quickly coming to an end.  School starts for my little fairies in about 2 weeks.  This summer has gone differently than I had planned.

Here was my plan. June: SUPER BUSY. we had a million things planned. JULY: We would be totally bored and my kids would fight 24 hours a day until I was forced to put them on any bus that went by my house.( No matter what day it was or where the bus was headed. )  I would then gleefully put them on the bus (their real bus) in August and wave enthusiastically and let out huge sigh of relief.   Here is how it has happened.  June: busy as planned. July: My kids have had a blast together and been all around fun and pleasant to be around. There has been minimal fighting. I have not once checked the Greyhound bus schedule.  There has been lots of swimming, sleeping late, reading, giggles, being lazy  and more giggles. what?  Who are these kids?  They are at such an AWESOME ages.  My oldest is 10 and youngest is 5.  We are catching glimpses of preteen, but for the most part our gal is friendly and herself. The youngest is obviously potty trained, and fully capable of dressing herself and other wonderful big kid things. Whining is almost non existent.  When one sister is gone, the other one MISSES THEM. (for real)  I am trying hard to find the pause button, but I am having no luck.  sigh.  

I have already given the lecture to all involved (especially myself) that come August 14th we are walking into crazytown and we are all to give each other a break and be kind to each other.  The youngest will be getting on a bus and heading to kindergarten. Clearly she was just born last week and they must have the dates for this school thing wrong. My baby will be taking off for the real world. (I may or may not be teary just typing it). My oldest is also going to a new school (Intermediate school) and will have a locker. She has been practicing how a locker works all summer. As for me, I will be fired from my current job of full time mom/part time artist and hopefully hired on as fulltime artist and part/full time mom!  I will be doing my best to do my best with what God gave me. I will be stretching my wings in the art world and giving it a full shot at making a real person job out of it. We will also be navigating the soccer business I mentioned in earlier blogs we have no idea what this will require of us.  I am trying hard to not worry about the changes that are coming. They are coming whether I worry or not.  I am also trying not to commit to anything else until we get our feet wet at our new gigs. 

Look for more posts to come once school starts. Until then....it is the pool....and hopefully more giggles.

craftiness. round one.

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Thought I would post some pictures of what we are up to that last couple of days!
 I have figured out that I am not good at multitasking.  I am pretty good at the "mom multitasking" (ie.. brushing someones hair while yelling at another child to pack up the car, while trying to start the dishwasher and looking for shoes) Now throw in art show prep and it all goes down the drain.
 Don't you know that person that can work full time and volunteer at the homeless shelter, and then set the table for a gourmet meal,  run off to book club, all  while looking radiant?  Its not me. It just isn't.  I have learned to be ok with that and give myself  some grace.  When I finished the art show  I promised the girls that we would go to the library. I looked around and thought OMG its BOOKS! I haven't read a book in months. I wonder if I still know how. (again not a good multitasker).  I had only one book on my list and I found it and I am reading it. I understand that people do this all the time, but I am so impressed that this is finally happening, I want to tell everyone. SO. there you go, who would have thought a good book would be blog worthy.

Let me also tell you that my oldest is 10 and a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE Beatles fan. We got her a ticket to see Paul McCartney for this upcoming weekend. I REALLY wish I could post the video of her opening up her present.  She made me promise not to share it.  So....I can say that she screamed louder than any scream ever, and then started sobbing. SOBBING.  She has already promised there will be tears at the concert. She is going with her friend and her friends dad. I can't wait to hear how it goes.  Apparently back in April I promised her that I would get her a new Beatles shirt for the concert.  YIKES. I said "Lets make one!"  This sounds crazy but I usually will do quite a bit of crafts with my sprouts, but this summer has been craftless. We ran out to Hobby Lobby and bought the kids shirts and supplies. Libby wanted one too. YEA!  Let me preface this with girls t-shirts are not as cute as boys in the store. Boys shirts are no frills and witty. (more my style)  Girls are kittens and hearts and stuff.  Julia is against all kinds of pink. Libby likes pink but quirky. I showed Julia some Beatles shirts online and we were all set to plagiarize, which we successfully did.

Have you heard of making shirts with freezer paper? I have seen it on the blogosphere....and thought we could give it a try.
1. Draw out your pattern on plain paper.. Julias I printed off the computer and Libby's I drew by hand.  This is Libbys drawing

2. tape design to cardboard and then tape freezer paper over top to trace, making sure the shiny side is down.

3. Using an exacto knife, cut out letters and design where you want ink at. This is when I really regretted the detail I put into Libby's drawing. If you have no patience keep it simple!

 

this is my husband working on his laptop and having a frosty beverage behind the stencil.

 

 

 

 

4. Place on the front of shirt and iron on the stencil, again shiny side down. Do not use steam on your iron.

5. Once the stencil is on the shirt, blot fabric paint over it. The ink SHOULD stay in the empty part of the stencil.  I don't have a pict of this...sorry.

6. WAIT UNTIL PAINT IS DRY. Use a hairdryer if you have to.

7. Peel off stencil and you are left with fancy shirts!!!

I am pretty happy with how they turned out.  The girls had fun and so did I.  Summer craftiness was a success.  Since I only have a month left with these two pixies at home we are going to be doing more crafts..... stay tuned! :)

MUCH love to you all, hope you are enjoying your summer.

art..where are we going???

Good Saturday morning to ya!

I just finished up a large art show and WHEW! It was a great show but I am totally exhausted.

I have to give a huge. HUGE. HUGE shout out to a few people. First a big public thank you to my parents. Not only did they watch my pixies for me while I set up for my show, they and my kids.....CLEANED MY HOUSE!  When I am getting ready for a show I am pretty crazy Like many moms out there, when you focus on work, the house falls apart and then focus on the house and work is running away with itself. SO. my house was a wreck.  I am so blessed call them both my parents.  I could not do this without them!
Another huge shout out goes to my awesome neighbors. I have never done this show before and I was not aware that I could not bring my car in to load up art after the first night. The vendor parking lot was about 1/2 mile away and I had no way of getting my stuff there without walking 4 bins of art 1/2 mile there and back 4 TIMES.  hmmm what to do. Just then my neighbors showed up and said "Do you need help loading up??" Errr...yep I do! :) I put my original art in their van and then carried a crate of prints to my car. I have no idea what I would have done had they not showed up when they did!  If you think I am bragging that my parents and neighbors are better than yours. I am !:)

As an "artist" you work and work in the quiet of your own home, not sure what people will think of your art. I post my stuff on Facebook and get great feedback. This feedback is from my friends, total strangers is a different story. Art shows are exciting and scary. Once a few people buy things I start to relax and enjoy myself. I start to notice what kind of people buy my art and who "doesn't get it". I don't sell landscapes and I understand that quirky may not be the theme you want for your home. Here are a few things  I noticed at my hometown's 4th of July fair.

• Women wearing denim shorts, wearing tall socks and tennis shoes don't get my art.
• People that bring their dog's to festivals tend to like my art.
• Women wearing maxi skirts/dresses love my art.
• The hippie guy selling magic wizard wands, incense burning was awesome when I set up the tent. Two days of it was overkill.
• The guy making balloon animals should be banned from making "Swords" for kids. I saw at least three kids come into my tent with these "swords"  we are all adults right? OK. these looked like kids running around with giant genitalia. eek. This balloon maker needs to look on youtube for some new balloon making tutortials.
• When you let your kids come with you in a booth please don't let them touch all the art with dirty hands.
• Pictures. hmmm. There were a lot of people that would smile when they saw my art and say "OH so and so would love this...." Then text them a picture of my art.  I have no idea what to do with this. I don't want my art ripped off but also don't want to be a jerk. hmmm fine line/
• I had some time to sketch while I was in my booth and I keep sketching the same mermaid wearing water wings. Not sure what to do with her.  I realize this makes me sound crazy.

Now that we got the random observations out of the way..... I am exhausted. Ex.  HAUS. TED.
I have used every bit of spare time I had to paint and glue and make all of this art. The act of each fair is tiring as well. The pay off was when about 75% of the people in my tent enthusiastically asked me where can I get more of this? do you have a store? can I get this in different colors? I have never seen anything like this before, I would like to buy more.   I was overwhelmed by everyone's generosity.  I also was very overwhelmed. My answer was always the same. "My youngest child is headed off to kindergarten in a month and we will see where all this goes!" I understand that this is an amazing problem to have but I have no real answers on how to make more art with the time I have.  I have started researching "thinking bigger" . My husband has been encouraging me to do this from the beginning and I will have to give him the credit if it pays off!! :) Just quietly saying a prayer of thanks tonight and overwhelmed by everyone's support.  Except for the balloon animal guy. I am praying he gets a how to make new balloon animals book for his birthday!
Have a great holiday weekend!
Lindsay and her seven  lemons...

A religious post??

Why am I doing this?
I am a Christian. I have been a Christian for as long as I can remember.  I do not  lecture people about my faith. I often do not bring it up, not because I am ashamed. I don't bring it up because I hope my actions speak for themselves. I hope.

Now, as a mom there are certain topics that I need to talk to my girls about. These are coming of age speeches that I will carefully sit down and explain how "life" works.  I like to think these conversations will come about "organically". I did not want to sit down with 20 books and say, "Girls, have you ever had that not so fresh feeling?".  However I have ages in mind that if  certain subjects are not brought up, then we have to address them. NO way are my pixies getting their first lesson on sex from the school nurse.  Homosexuality is one of those topics. For some reason it just never came up until recently. My oldest (age 10) came home and said....." mom, something weird happened in music class today.  We were singing a song that  had the word gay in it.  the kids started laughing. My music teacher  told them to stop it, it meant happy and not what the kids were actually laughing at. Mom, what does gay really mean?"
 I said a quick prayer. I know my children are going to grow up and live their own life and have their own opinions about things. That is how the world works. I want them to know that my opinion on this topic is UNWAVERING.  I explained that "you know how your dad and I met, and fell in love and have spent our lives together? There are some women who fall in love with other women and some men who fall in love with other men. They love each other very much just like your daddy and I do.  When someone is in love with someone that is the same gender, that is what gay is. Do you have any questions??"

J-"Mom..why would that be funny??"  me=-" J, it isn't funny. Do you understand what I mean when I say majority, and minority? (she did) The majority of people aren't gay. There is a minority of people that are.  Sometimes when people see something that is not what they are used to they make fun of it or laugh. It is sometimes how people respond when something makes them uncomfortable."   J="that is not nice at all"   me="You are very right"  j= "are gay people allowed to get married like you and dad did?"  me="In some states, yes. Do you have any more questions about this??" j=nope.
I had to add more, I just had to. I had to warn her tiny little just and fair heart.  sigh. 
me- "J, you should probably know that there are people out there that do not like that people are gay, they think it is wrong and sometimes don't even like gay people and are mean to them."
  j=what?? Mom, how do you feel about it?   Here is where some of my Christian friends and family are going to disown me. They are going to stop and say a prayer for me and my children.  Feel free. My opinion is the same.
me= "God made them that way. God said love thy neighbor as yourself. He did not say, unless they are gay, or anything else you disagree with. We love everyone and support them. It does not mean that the people that do not feel this way are bad people either. everyone is allowed to have an opinion. This is my opinion. any more questions"  Now here is the kicker. I am crying just typing it. That pixie with the kind and just, heart said from the back seat."Mom, its kind of like when there was slavery.  I am sure there were really good people that also believed in slavery, but they figured out that everyone deserved to be who they were and do what they want"  uhhhh yeah. that!

I will back the train up. I did say "God made them that way". You read it right. For those that are in mid prayer for my family, hear me out.  Have you ever known or loved someone that was gay? Have you watched them struggle. DId you know that gay and lesbian teens are 2-3 times more  likely to commit suicide than teens that are heterosexual. TWO TO THREE TIMES!!!  I have been a teenager before and remember the pressure to be normal and "not be made fun of.  So your argument is that these children of God made this choice to be ostracized and sometimes have their families disown them? Why? So they can be different? So they can get attention?? When my children are nervous heading into any situation I always tell them "Just be yourself, and it will be fine" Imagine now that doesn't apply to you at ALL. You have to pretend to be something you are not for your family to love and accept you. Again, I do not think this is anything someone would "choose".

Lets say your opinion is different than mine and that you think being gay is a sin. that is fine. It is not that fact, that is the problem. It is how you act. Infidelity is a sin. People who cheat on their spouses are welcomed with open arms into churches everywhere every week.  Yes I know they are not walking in and screaming "I am cheating on her". Oddly enough  most gay people are not acting"gay" at church either. They are not making out with their partners and dressed head to toe in rainbows. Calm down people, chances are they will sit in the pew, praise God and go home and have a boring Sunday , just like you. They do not want to have relations with you, or infringe on your life or beliefs.
  Sometimes, just as a warning, if you are a Christian and say something negative about people who are gay to someone. ...that person knows someone who is gay. They may not say it outloud but the thought happens. If my "brother, friend, cousin or whomever" is not accepted at your church then I am not sure I want to go there either. There might be 200 people who will accept people just as they are that go to that church, but because of the one slanderous comment, now many think badly of your church, your faith and in turn my faith. I respect the differing opinions on the subject, what I do not respect is when the " love your neighbor as yourself" rule  is butchered to prove a point. 

Some of you have read this and said internally "THAT was a religious post!" "Some have said " That was a religious post??" Either way you think is fine with me, because its my blog! :)

back home again....

There are  quite a few entries in the blog that are really just me writing down memories. I think the girls will like to see  that their mom was a real person at one point. :) This is one of those entries. 

I went to a funeral service for an amazing woman today. She was my neighbor at my old house. I considered her a grandma. She treated me like a grandkid. She had 4 kids. When we lived there the youngest child was still in high school and the oldest had kids my age.  I grew up with her grandchildren. I was also fascinated that there was a REAL high schooler that lived RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO ME. I think small kids think that high school is a magical land of amazing half grown-up people. Kids can recognize  that teenagers are still functioning like a kid but look like an adult. "mysterious".  Marion had amazing things at her house. She always had candy out in a jar on the coffee table.  She was always reading paperback romance novels. When I asked what she was reading, she would say "Oh, don't you worry about it, sweetie". I learned how to play cards over there, danced to Michael Jackson, and raced around her giant yard!  She had a bowl that you put corn in, that looked like a real  ear of corn!  She had a giant vase at her front door with pussy willow plants in it. I learned to not run barefoot in her rock garden, and  that all cats were not friendly. (It was my goal to make her cat, Tatty like me-I failed)  She was such a character and will be missed.

The funeral service was in my hometown. There are pros and cons to living almost anywhere. The pro to not living where you grew up, is you don't see it as the daily mundane place. In other words I don't have to go grocery shopping or run errrands there.  To me it is all of the happy memories  of growing up.  Every where is a "look at that" or "remember when we"....it is a fun place to visit.  I took Libby thru my old neighborhood. As I drove around, things looked great and about the same. Our neighborhood was on a large hill.  I was ready to drive down the hill and remembered a question that Julia had asked me last week. "Mom, did Nanny or Papaw ever do anything to embarrass you when you were a kid?"  (I think I am starting to embarrass her??)  Uh, yes Julia they did. It happened right at the top of that hill. Today it made me laugh outloud to think about. 

When I was in high school, my friend and I dated  guys that were best friends. PERFECT. This was great for all involved since we could double date. Every weekend consisted of a date with the 4 of us.  She and I were talking one  day and she admitted that she was thinking about breaking up with her boyfriend. WHAT? What would happen to our double dates? I had actually been thinking about doing the same thing but was afraid to admit it. So we decided to break up with our boyfriends on the same day. ( Note:this was not the peak of my maturity, thank God!)  I am sure we did it in a heartless way like in a note all folded up like an origami bird or something.   Anyway, the guys were obviously bummed because my mom was driving up to our house, my friend and I were in the back of the van. The two boys were parked at my house egging it. In the middle of the day. Again, high schoolers are idiots! :) The boys spotted her and took off driving. My mom took after them in a blind rage and all of a sudden we were involved in a chase scene that rivaled the Italian Job. Only instead of driving stylish mini coopers my mom was driving like Bo and Luke Duke in her minivan.  She got PASSED them and stopped her van so they could not get passed us and then got out to confront them.  This was the point I was certain. CERTAIN.  I would die of embarrassment. We will have to call 911 because I knew then it was possible to actually DIE of embarrassment.  Through the glass of the minivan windows, I could hear my mom  yelling, I caught, "ashamed of yourself"  "lucky I don't call your moms"  Sweet heavens. Social. life. OVER.  Surprisingly I woke up the next day and did not die.  I also lived thru the next. No eye contact was made for awhile with both of the guys involved. I was so selfish that I never thought through how embarrassing it must have been for them. 

No real moral to this story, just a funny memory and how now as an adult I can see all sides of it, but at the time I was a teenager and it pretty much revolved around me. I will most likely embarrass my girls to the point of near death.  I think I owe them at least that! :)  Happy Tuesday!

anyone want some wine?

Well friends what a weekend. By that I mean what a crappy weekend. There were some AMAZING parts (visiting some amazing friends) but for the most part we had a few disappointments that left us angry and a little worse for the wear.  The weathermen and women in Indianapolis described the apocalyptic weather forecast in great detail on Friday. The weekend would be a wash.  I tried as hard as I could to figure out how to get my art to the wine festival without the "tornados" "large hail" or "flooding" damaging it.  One or all of these were events were promised. I finally decided that I would not go. I could not risk ruining all of my art. I patted myself on the back, applauding my responsibility. Look at what a grown up I am. Sigh. Now lets spend a rainy family day together. I will make some chili, we will watch wonderful movies and I will be so glad that I was so smart. NOPE. Lets watch it NOT rain and we end up at the pool. THE POOL!  I get it. There are starving children in Africa, I understand this is a total first world problem. I really do.  Even though I understood I was SO angry. I worked so hard to get ready for this. I have another show July 4th weekend. I will be super ready for it.( I reminded myself of this over and over)
 I was now pretty bummed I focused on the wine part of things. I had earlier considered that pretty smart or "knowing your market". Now thanks to a misstep by mother nature I am left with lots of wine themed art, and picturing customers at my next show assuming I have a real drinking problem.  I had just worked SO so SO SO so SO hard for this, and now.  nothing.

Its now Monday and I should be over it, but was still struggling with being angry. I don't know why I did, but I thought of last year at this time. We had just accepted an offer on our house. We had no idea that we were about to head into a crazy few events that would make us almost lose selling it, and lose buying the one we live in now.  We had no idea how scary it was to watch everything fall out from underneath us.
Last year at this time I would have casually joked that  I was so stressed that it felt like "I was going to have a stroke." not knowing that mom would have a stroke in a few short months.  This time last year I did not realize how crazy it was to move. How in a short year,  I  would feel like I had always lived in this house, and love my new neighbors to pieces, yet still feel like my old neighbors are still "MY neighbors" and I would miss seeing their smiling faces every day (I did have that figured out). I would not have known how to maneuver around my daughters new school and some of the politics that came with it.

In other words. Look at the difference a year can make. Look at the difference a DAY can make.  I know this feels like a big deal now, but put on your big girl pants, and get over it because who knows what tomorrow will bring!  Stop wasting time wishing it is different, it's just not!  So I am getting ready for an amazing summer with my girls, and a few art shows that look like I am a professional wine drinker. There are surely worse things than that.  Happy Monday, people! :)