Spaz vs The Machine

This weekend our Girl Scout troop is hosting an All Scouts Day where we plan on giving our girls the badges and fun patches that they have earned this year (providing we don't get rained out - South Florida is proving to be a rainy lady for the past few days). I'm super excited because Goober's Cub Scout pack will be doing their crossover ceremony at the event, too. I love it when scouts get together in harmonious scout love.

At any rate, yesterday one of my super awesome co-leader's (we have 3 leaders for our troop and we really do need every one of our heads to make it work) went to the dollar store and bought these adorable little green tote bags to give to each of the girls with their awards.

The three of us communicate with each other frequently in a little facebook chat, so yesterday this was part of the chat that my co-leaders had when I wasn't looking.

That's right. I recently purchased an embroidery machine. 

It all started because of scouts (everything in my life seems to start because of scouts). The kids uniforms looked like crap. Goober's Cub Scout shirt had stains on it from where I bled my own blood while attempting to sew on his numbers, Munchkin's vest was empty with a ziploc baggie of pretty patches attached to it, and Bug had nothing on his shirt at all. It was $2 a patch to have someone else sew them on (with three kids that adds up super fast) and even though many of my fellow scout parents had volunteered to help out nothing had ever come to fruition.  So I told The Man that I needed a sewing machine.

When we started looking at sewing machines and realized that so many of them now come with this cool embroidery function, we decided that it might just be a wise investment to add on to my growing t-shirt business. Embroidered stuff is desirable, yanno?

So we purchased a fancy schmancy sewing/embroidery combo and a bunch of thread.  Immediately upon getting the machine home, The Man set out to learn everything and anything he could about the machine. Before I knew it he was using scrap fabric I had lying around to embroider hearts and flowers and everything else the machine had already loaded in it.

But me? I stuck to sewing.  The embroidery thing intimidated me. You had to use a screw driver thing to change it from a sewing machine to an embroidery machine and you had to trap the fabric in this modern day fabric torture device and it was just plain scary. So I avoided it.

Until yesterday's message.

I had to get over the hump.  It was for the girls.

So I let my co-leader know she could come over with the bags and we'd embroider them.

Y'all... from the get-go the machine and I battled. The Man decided that last night was the night to get me to figure this all out and offered only guidance but wouldn't do any of the actual work. First, trying to get the thick woven material into the scary torture device (I hear it's called a loom) was a nightmare. But once I figured that out, then I had to do the programming to actually put the name on the bag in the right position. 

After way too long figuring that out, the machine was ready to go and I pressed the magic green button.

Almost immediately the machine threw the needle right out of the damn thing toward my face. It was trying to blind me.

What I have done to piss this machine off, I'll never know. 

I figured out I was using too wimpy of a needle and had to beef it up. Luckily The Man had the foresight to have already purchased some beefier needles. So we changed the needle and tried again. 

About halfway through embroidering the first name, the needle flew out at me again! Hah! You missed me, machine!

I had forgotten to tighten it in with the screwdriver thingie. 

This time I tightened it nicely, and started on another bag. 

The next three bags went off without a hitch. I was starting to feel comfortable. The machine felt me relax and struck again.  

This time, the thread by the bobbin was all a mess and stuck up in the machine in all sorts of places and I had to use the jaws of life to actually free the bag from the machine's thready clutches. Two bags down - good thing they were only a dollar.

After freeing the same bag from the machine three times, refilling the bobbin, winding thread on the underside of where the bobbin sits to wind it instead of actually on the bobbin, and destroying yet another bag, I finally completed adorable embroidery on 5 out of the 8 bags.

Later today I'll have to run and pick up some more bags from the dollar store to replace the ones that were damaged. 

In last night's lesson I learned a few things - one being that you should only attempt embroidery with alcohol readily available - and I think I might be getting the hang of the machine. Eventually I think I might be able to actually do some neat stuff with it.

For today, though, I think the machine and I will give each other some space.

Girl Scout Scrapbooking Freebies and Bridging Certificates and TShirts, too!

It's about time.

We've been working on our site for custom Girl Scout troop tshirts for what seems like forever.  Every time I would think it was done, there was more to do. But now, finally, it's up and functional and running and all the bugs are worked out (I hope). I've received orders and fulfilled them and people are happy.  Our facebook page is working (go like it! I'll wait here) and I've even got coupon codes and stuff (you have to like the facebook page to get them - I told you I'd wait). Fancy, huh?

I can't tell you how happy I am. :)

To celebrate, I'm offering freebies! Scrapbooking freebies, that is. I bet you didn't know that one of my hidden passions is digital scrapbooking. I sort of love making pretty photo collage style things with them and I've made a few sets.


I do sell a few on the site, but I also made some freebie bonus sets that are completely free to download and use. Get them here (and check out the rest of the site, yeah?)

But it doesn't stop there. Bridging season is upon us. That's right, right now (well, probably this weekend and next), all across the country, little Daisy Girl Scouts are becoming Brownie Girl Scouts and little Brownie Girl Scouts are becoming Junior Girl Scouts. Sassy Junior Girl Scouts are becoming Cadette Girl Scouts and dedicated Cadette Girl Scouts are becoming Senior Girl Scouts. It's happening everywhere.

Our troop isn't bridging this year - our girls are entering their 2nd year as Cadettes - but I know lots of girls who are and we are so proud of them all! Every time a girl recommits herself to Girl Scouting for another year my heart swells with happiness. There is truly, nothing a girl can't do.

But enough with the mushy stuff. I made free printable certificates for those super-fantastic girls! They're high resolution and can be printed at home or professionally if you're feeling ambitious. There's a couple to choose from and you can get them here.

And go check out the site! We don't plan on stopping with just Girl Scout shirts, either. In the future we plan on adding more athletic designs and youth group designs and pretty much anything people want.

It's gonna be fun!

Tuesday Goobsday

Following yesterday's theme, today is all about Goober. That's right, Tuesday Goobsday. (Bug's day is going to be Sunday - so don't think I'm neglecting him when there's no post until then.)

Goober is 9 right now and will be turning 10 in September. Being the youngest in our family, I often forget how much he can do and he surprises me daily with his personality. 

When my children were babies and toddlers, I always felt like I knew them inside and out. They were from me, they were a part of me.  And then they all started to develop their personalities. And Goober has quite the personality. 

He's a constant joker and he loves to mess with people. Around our house we constantly call him "The Troll" because, much like an Internet troll, he will say things with the sole intention of getting a rise out of someone. He will act clueless about the simplest things in order to drive a person crazy with questions and then laugh when his victim realizes his questions are so ridiculous that he absolutely must be messing with them. He always has a snappy comeback to every situation and his mouth never stops.

Ever.

EVER.

From the moment his eyes open in the morning his mouth starts going. He's telling stories, he's making sounds, he's asking questions. I'm not sure how his teachers at school ever get a thought across to the rest of the class. 

This year Munchkin and Bug are both going to middle school which lets out a full two hours after Goober gets home. So every school day this year, I have enjoyed two hours of uninterrupted Goober time with just the two of us. I've learned more than I ever cared to learn about LEGOs, really tall buildings, and his world traveling third grade teacher. 

Goober wanted to build a special creation for me to feature on the blog today, but I didn't give him enough time. There's always next week.

Goober has more LEGOs than any kid should have. I almost feel guilty that there are underprivileged kids in this world who have never seen a LEGO and my 9 year-old has two 18 gallon bins overflowing.  But he loves them so much and he never asks for anything else. Every birthday and Christmas since he was 4 has been a LEGOfest. He says he wants to be an architect when he grows up (after his NFL career is over), so I feel a little less guilty considering we're starting him down a career path. 

He's just finishing his first year as a cub scout and will start his first season of tackle football this summer. 

I'm thinking Tuesdays will be my easiest blog day because Goober never gives me a shortage of material to work with. Tune in next Tuesday to see what LEGO masterpiece Goober comes up with. 

Monday Munchkin Day

I was trying to think of a way to get myself a little more blog inspired. I mean, really, where did my motivation go? Perhaps it was leeched from me along with all of the energy I used to have in my 20s. Can I get a caffeine drip up in here?

So anyway, I decided to get back to why I started the blog in the first place. It was an outlet for me to write and express myself and a place for me to document my children as they grow.

With that in mind, I've decided to devote one day a week to each of my three children, starting today. Monday will be Munchkin's day. Monday Munchkin Day.

I should probably come up with a cute graphic. Hold on a second.

There we go. That's much better.

Munchkin is currently 11 years old. She is an enigma to me. She is somehow so much like I was at her age and yet so very different.

Munchkin loves horses. In fact, as I type this she is there, at the barn, shoveling manure and riding and immersing herself in that world. I loved horses when I was her age, too, but I didn't have the same moxie that Munchkin has. Munchkin has no fear. She'll walk straight up to the biggest off-the-track Thoroughbred in the field, throw a halter on him, and show him who's boss. She amazes me.

On Mothers Day this year, Munchkin rode in a local show and won Grand Champion for her classes. I knew she had improved over the past year that she's been showing, but Grand Champion? This means she had the highest overall score of all of the riders in her category. I cannot think of a better Mothers Day gift.

Munchkin doesn't stop with horses, though. Munchkin never stops. She will try anything and she's GOOD at everything. Enigma, I tell you.

She's just completing her first year of middle school and decided she wanted to play the alto saxophone with the band. I prepared myself for needing earplugs on a regular basis in the house while she practiced, but the girl can actually play a tune. She's no Sonny Rollins, but I really don't hate listening to her practice. Next year she wants to try out the tenor sax and I'm sure she'll do great with that, too.

Munchkin's next challenge is that she has decided to play flag football with our area's co-ed league. The Man and I are looking forward to many hot, sweaty summer days at the park watching our little girl rock a football.

I really can't tell you how proud we are of her. She's seriously an unstoppable force.

The Internet is my sinkhole.

I'm bubbling with words, y'all.

So much thinking going on in my head and I want to get it all out on to the page - but I just can't seem to put it together coherently.

The inside of my head is like one of those houses on hoarders. It's all covered in broken appliances and trash and cat poo.  But in between all the ten year old pieces of mail and receipts for groceries that have long ago rotted, there is real gold in there. Real thoughts that need to be spoken.

I have this fantasy that I go somewhere that there is no Internet, no TV, no radio, no distractions. Just me and my computer and my words. How on earth do people turn out books these days? How do they keep themselves from being distracted by all the shiny squirrels running around? Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and YouTube and Ellen DeGeneres and men who get swallowed up by sinkholes and snowstorms and the latest dumb drama going on in that Facebook group they lurk in.

Every time I start to have a thought that I think might really be valuable, another damn shiny squirrel goes running by and I'm clickety clicking away.

I need a retreat. The Internet is my sinkhole.

Maybe I won't have to drive anywhere between now and Monday....

My drivers license is expired. It expired on my birthday last week. I fully intended on getting it renewed before my birthday, but evidently I can't renew it online this time so I have to go to the DMV to do it.  Which doesn't sound so bad... except it is that bad. Down here, we can make an appointment to get our license renewed, or we can go wait in line all day long with all the other procrastinators who didn't make an appointment.

I hate waiting in line. Waiting in line is quite possibly the most irritating thing in the universe to me. It's time suckage.  Not that I always use my time wisely or that I'm even very productive... but being forced to spend hours waiting in a line forces me to think about all the things that I could be doing if I weren't waiting in line.

I have thirty loads of laundry to do. I'm only exaggerating that a little bit. I might not be exaggerating it at all. I'm not sure.  I could be doing laundry if I weren't waiting in line. The kitchen could really use a good cleaning. It's probably getting dirtier while I'm waiting in this line. There is probably some sort of bacteria growing rampant right now in my kitchen sink on a dish that was left in there overnight. It's going to be out of control by the time I get out of this line. I probably have some things I need to ship. If I weren't in this line I would have shipped them. Customers would be happier if I weren't in this line. All of my problems would be solved if I just didn't have to wait in this damn line!

So I decided to make an appointment. I didn't even really procrastinate that much because it was late January when I logged on to make an appointment to get my drivers license renewed. I didn't think that was procrastinating, but I guess it was because the earliest appointment they had was March 4th. But by March 4th my drivers license would have already been expired.  My only other option was to wait in line.

So I weighed my options. Wait in line for hours, driving myself crazy, and get it renewed before my birthday; or make the March 4th appointment, pay the $20 extra fee, and pray I don't get pulled over for the 9 days that my license would be expired.

So my license is expired.

Now, if you're a deeply committed Domestic Spaz reader (and if you are then you actually probably should be committed) you might remember back in 2008 when I was last at the DMV they had me take a little eye exam. And I failed it. But due to the nature of the safety measures put in place by the lovely people at the DMV, they just let me have my license anyhow.

This time, I thought that maybe, just maybe, they'd probably make me take that little eye exam again and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't just let me have my license anyhow.  So I figured it was probably about time for me to go ahead and get my eyes checked.

Have you been to an eye doctor lately? I hadn't before yesterday. Times have changed, y'all.  There was this little box I could check on the paperwork that said something like "If you don't want to stumble around blinded and crying fluorescent yellow tears for the next few hours, check this box and we'll just take a picture of the back of your eyes instead of dilating them." 

Yes, please.

So they took a picture of the back of my eye and my new awesome eye doctor took the time to show me the picture on the computer. He pointed out the dark spot that showed where my vision was actually focusing and why I couldn't see correctly. He told me how beautiful and healthy my eyes were. Shucks.

Then he showed me all kinds of other messed up eyes. Scarred eyes, diabetic eyes, eyes with glaucoma, eyes that were practically blind. He took the time to show me all these pictures and explain them to me and I was all "This is the coolest thing EVER."

And then my new awesome eye doctor gave me contacts and I could see. Like, perfectly. 

So now I'm all ready for my appointment on Monday. Except for the myriad of paperwork I need to track down between now and then to prove I'm really me. Good thing we only have to do this every 4 years.

Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend - Bill Watterson

I'm really lucky to have a lot of best friends.

Remember when you were in grade school and you had only one best friend? It may have switched around from one person to another, but it was an elite position that could only be held by one special person who shone the brightest of the bunch.

Thank goodness all that garbage is over.

Nowadays I have lots of best friends and I cherish every one of them. 

Some of those friends I talk to on an almost daily basis. If I don't hear from one of them for a couple of days I start to worry. These are the ladies that run in my circle. We're in the same place in life - married (or in my case, permanently partnered), raising kids, frazzled with messy houses and car repairs and busy schedules.  

They're the ones I talk to when Bug throws an apple through Munchkin's bedroom window, shattering it all over her bedroom (yes - this happened).  They teach me to laugh at life and hold my hand as I step through the inevitable disasters that come from being a mom.  I cherish these friends for so many reasons. When I lose my mind, they're there to pull me away from the insanity, hand me a drink, and make me laugh until I cry. Every girl needs friends like these bitches. ♥

Some of my best friends are more distant, but just as loved. They're friends I've collected over the years. Some from childhood when I was learning how to be a friend, some from those tumultuous teenage years when everything was so full of importance and passion, and some from the years when I was learning how to be on my own.  Out of all the girlfriends that have walked through my life, these are the special ones that I will never let go of. 

I don't speak to them every day, sometimes I don't speak to them for a month or more. But they are no less important. They are anchors.  These are the girls who I would drop anything for and rush to their side in times of sadness. They'd do the same for me. When their name shows up on the Caller ID it might just be because they're checking in, but it's more likely that something important is going on and they're calling for support and love. 

They are lifers. They are the ones I'll be playing bridge with on an oceanfront balcony when we're in our golden years. 



When I think about all of my besties, I feel so full of love and fortune. I can't imagine my life without them. 

May the fork be with you.

About a year ago The Man and I found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. We were out of forks. And spoons. Butter knives, we retained.... but forks and spoons were nowhere to be found.

"But where could they have gone?" we asked each other in disbelief. Even after the entire kitchen had been cleaned and all dishes and silverware washed, dried, and put away we would stare, baffled, at the empty slots in our utensil caddy where forks and spoons had once been.

Did the fork really run away with the spoon? All 12 of them? Had some cutlery obsessed thief been sneaking into our home and stealing them? What could have possibly happened to all of them?

Eventually we turned to the kids. Of course it was the kids. Those sweet darlings who might sneak a bowl of ice cream into their room, leaving the bowl and spoon stashed under a bed or in a drawer so no one would know. Perhaps Munchkin had brought all of our forks to the barn stashed in lunch boxes and they had been lost forever in piles of muck.

At any rate, we were out of forks and spoons.

After a brief period of using only disposable plastic forks, The Man and I ventured out to purchase some more silverware. But this time we were a little smarter.

We bought two sets.  One nicer set for The Man and I... and one $9.99 set with 24 forks, knives, and spoons that were just barely dishwasher safe. I cleared out another drawer in the kitchen, put a silverware tray in it, and we instructed the kids that they were only to use the silverware in that drawer.  They weren't to touch our nice, new, fancy silverware.

Here it is, about a year later, and you might guess what has happened.

The Man and I have plenty of nice silverware that we use on a regular basis.

The kids? They're down to one fork, three spoons, and a plethora of butter knives.

They're now using a box of 500 forks I purchased from Costco for a birthday party. When that's gone I think I'm going to encourage them to make their own silverware out of rocks and bits of wire they find while scavenging the neighborhood.

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance - and other P Words.

So yesterday's blog post was fun. :)

The feedback I received from it was along similar lines - that it was a private affair I should keep between me and my ex (which implies I communicate with him).

I don't think it's out of line at all for me to bash my ex a bit on my blog. I've shared a lot of personal details about myself and people in my life in my posts and I don't think they need to be limited to when I'm feeling warm and squishy about someone.  If I had named him and posted a link to his facebook page that might have been over the top, but I took it way easy on him. Way easy.

But that's the end of the blog real estate that he'll be getting. On to better and more interesting topics.

Since it's the beginning of 2013, we're going to talk resolutions. This year I noticed a lot of resolution hate on the Internet and I was surprised. What's with all the negativity toward setting new goals for yourself in the beginning of the year? Sure, the chances of keeping a New Years resolution is pretty slim. When I look back at the resolutions I've made over the past decade or so, they're all just the same resolutions over and over. Which means I haven't kept one of them yet. But this year will be different. (I've said that before, too.)

I love New Years. It's in the running with Halloween for my favorite holiday. It's a holiday that celebrates friendship and forgiveness and hope and optimism. And champagne. It's a day off from work with no obligation. It's a free day. Is there a better way to start the year?

Every year I make resolutions. This year was no different... except that I narrowed my list down to one. One single resolution.

My mother will be so proud. I'm going to stop procrastinating. Procrastination is like a dirty word to my mother. She is the antithesis of procrastination. When I was growing up, our Thanksgiving table was set the week before Thanksgiving. Things were planned, calendars were filled, we never ran out of toilet paper or milk. If there was a task to be done, my mom had it done before anyone else even knew that a task had been thought of.

Oh, the apple fell so far from the tree with me that you might as well call it a lemon.

I've been a procrastinator my whole life. Why do today what I can put off til tomorrow? Perhaps the problem will just go away on its own?  Why study for that exam a week ahead of time when I can party all week and fit in a cram session the night before the test?

And we wonder why I didn't do so well in college.

So this year, I'm really going to work on procrastination. It's going to be a journey. It's a 35 year old habit that I'm trying to break here so I imagine it's going to take some practice.

And on that note - I'm off to put the laundry in the dryer.

Here's a big giant middle finger for my ex-husband - and oh hey, I'm gonna blog more.

I stopped blogging for a while, did you notice?

For a while I thought I was going to scrap this blog. Completely. Never to return again.

But you know what? I like it. I like having my very own soapbox and I like having a place to write. I just hate feeling like I have to censor myself. Censoring myself makes writing, something I love to do, so unenjoyable. It makes it a task on the to-do list instead of a hobby I'm passionate about.

So why would I censor myself?

The most recent reason boils down to my ex-husband. Through the grapevine I learned that not only is he reading the blog - but he's taking the pictures I post of Bug and Munchkin and posting them on his own facebook wall like he's father of the year.

So let's get something straight. Bug and Munchkin don't know him. At all. Not even a little bit. And they don't ask about him, either.

The last time we saw him Munchkin was about two weeks old.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint a picture of myself sitting at home crying because my husband walked out. That's not the case. I'm the one who left. I left because he was a cheater and a liar and a manipulator and there was no way in hell I was going to raise my children to follow in his footsteps. I left because I was tired of sitting at home taking care of a child, trying to pay the bills, and making a home for us while he went out with friends and spent our money on fun.

But I'm not going to turn this blog into a lynching. Suffice it to say, he wasn't there for us in the way we needed him to be so I left him.  And he put on a show like he cared for a little while. But in the end it was pretty obvious that he was just fine with being single again and that whole "being a dad" thing was kind of putting a damper on his social life.

By the time Munchkin was just a few months old, he had completely stopped even trying to contact us. Neither of the kids have ever once received so much as a call on their birthday from him. Nothing.

And to be quite honest, that's fine with me and as far as I can tell it's fine with them, too.

But for him to post pictures of my babies on his facebook page like he's their dad and he has something to be proud of? It infuriates me.

He has nothing to be proud of. He has no reason to brag about how awesome they are, how beautiful they are, how talented and smart and funny they are. He had no part of that. None. They are amazing in spite of him.

The best thing he ever did for them was walk far, far away. And I hope he keeps on walking.