Must Be a Frog Thing

There has been a lot of stuff caught up in my brain so you know there is a ramble coming.  I keep meaning to sit down and work it all out to a somewhat manageable post but this is going to be as close as it gets.  :)  I sat down last night to blog and got sidetracked cracking sunflower seeds and enjoying getting stuck in the internet.  There are days where I feel like there is nothing to read and then days where I get annoyed that real life is interfering with my "research".  And before you jump to that conclusion it doesn't always involve online shopping.

So yesterday I was stuck in the interwebs looking for hat patterns.  I want to knit a hat that looks like one my favorite princess sports in the beginning of the Princess and the Frog.  I found this one for a knitted cloche hat.  After I decided on the pattern I rummaged through my sorted green yarns and found one I liked.  Then I went through my collection of needles.  I thought about how lucky I am that people bring me vintage needles.  I felt so loved as I looked through my assortment.  And then I got a metal sliver in my hand from a damaged needle and was convinced everyone was trying to kill me.  I understand that my reaction was a bit overdramatic.  It must have been that set because the next set I grabbed was fine.

I put on Princess and the Frog as I started to knit.  Yes, I watch cartoons willingly.  I really only had a kid to have someone to watch cartoons with.  Then it dawned on me that I like cartoon frogs.  My favorite muppet is a frog.  My favorite princess is a frog.  I even had cute little frogs on the first set of dishes that Hubs and I had when we moved out.  The reason this all seems weird to me is that I am petrified of real ones.  I know it's a weird fear and I don't really understand it myself.  But there it is.

I'm afraid of frogs.

I grew up in the country so I've been around them.  Country snakes or spiders don't bother me.  I can squish spiders all the live long day but put a frog in front of me and I scream like the little girl I am. I used to be that way with spiders at one point in my life.  Then I was on the yard with my toddler class and there was a spider in the yard.  Two of my grown co teachers noped to the other side of the yard when they saw it and I was left there staring at it.  I guess fight or flight kicked in.  I couldn't let it get near my kids.  I didn't what kind it was so it was possible that it was poisonous.  I squished it and have had no problems squishing spiders since.  It's them or me!

I try not to let it get the best of me.  I begrudgingly take my daughter through the reptile exhibit at the Zoo.  But the point is that I still go.  I try not to let her know that it bothers me but I do let her know that even big Mommies are afraid of some things.

 

Like Superpowers, Kinda.

I have to remind myself sometimes that even though my Clover is "like six feet tall" according to her, that she is still only four.  In the scheme of things she hasn't been around for that long.  She is still learning how to navigate the world and I need to remember that.  There are things that we are working on.  We are still working on the outbursts and meltdowns.  Which sometimes can be taxing on a parent.  So I tried to put it in perspective.

It would be like if you got a super power.  All of the sudden your power kicks in.  You have this new ability and no idea how to use it.  Not only do you have to learn how to use them but also how to control them.  

Patience is needed all around.  So in this scenario does that make me Professor X?  I'll take it.

It all made sense in my head.  

Forts and Such

At the beginning of Summer I found this fort building kit at my local book store.  It was a cute idea but at fifty bucks was out of my price range.  A few weeks later, I found it online for more than half off so I jumped on it and had it shipped to the house.  The mail lady looked annoyed because they shipped it through the Post Office and the box was too large to fit in the parcel box so she had to deliver it to the door.  Hubby took one look at it and laughed.  That was followed up with a "when I was a kid...we didn't need a kit to build a fort" speech.

Now we have done the massive forts, the couch forts, the let us see how many blankets we can fit in the living room rainy day forts.  So we are no stranger to forts.  I even have spare parachord and a hook in my wall for forts.  So my goal with the kits was more of a design and implement lesson.  Clover would be able to build with the poles attach the balls to design and create a fort.  I'm not going to post the name of the product because in about two seconds you are going to see what I don't like about the kit.

Here is the structure poles and balls to connect everything together.  I helped a little bit.

And here is the fort with the blanket included with the kit.  

Are you kidding me?  

It's not even large enough to cover the roof!  

Our solution was to use a king size jersey knit fitted sheet.

The elastic in the fitted sheet grabs the bottom and holds on.  

The sheet even makes a nice little cubby hole door.  

The kit is nice because it gives us something to do when the weather is too hot to play outside but I think that the company could have put a little more thought into it.  If I would have paid original price for this I would have taken it back.  That blanket that comes with it is just silly.

For now it gives Clover somewhere to camp out and hide.  I think her favorite part is setting up the inside with pillows and her flashlight.  

Took a Chance

This weekend we took a vacation.  It's been awhile since we just went and chilled out somewhere, just the three of us.  We had plans to go to Big Sur and go hiking but Hubby fell in love with the lodge that we stayed at that we just hung out after visiting the beach.  Which was okay with the rest of us.

The picture of the sunset over the mountain.

Lots of fun was to be had!

Not exactly sand.

Everything was lovely.  We took a chance on the hotel we wanted to stay at.  We have never stayed in Cambria.  We usually do Morro Bay.  We ended up lucking out because the room was awesome!  We drove down Main Street and got a bite to eat and just spent time hanging out and enjoying each other's company.  It was a very much needed vacation.  We loved it so much that none of us wanted to come home.  We were all pouty as we drove back over the mountain.

We had to come back though, we had an excellent surprise to home too.  The house was cleaner than when we had left it!  And our secret cleaner elf found the remote!

All around...best weekend ever!  

All The Dresses

I like to start brainstorming for All Hallow's Eve early because if I am going to whip up an outfit it's going to take some time.  Clover has already decided that she was going to be Merida this year.  So I decided that I wanted to dress up too.  So I will be playing the part of Elinor, Merida's mother.  I found some ideas from various websites.  One of them is a quick overview of the costume.   I found a few websites that would make the dress but the prices where way out of the price range I would pay to wear it for one night.  So did some more internet searching and found a pattern that I felt came pretty close to what I was looking for.

bottom right corner?

 
I was pretty excited when I got the pattern in the mail.  Clover asked me what it was so I explained that it has instructions to tell me how to make these dresses.  Her eyes grew three sizes and she exclaimed

"Wait?!?  You mean YOU CAN MAKE DRESSES?"

Even though she has seen me make several things she never thought I could make dresses since we bought them.  The dress up ones usually came in the mail because I found some killer deals online.  It took her awhile to form her mind around the fact that I could whip up costumes.

I'm not sure this is a good thing.

A master list has been created.  She has been asking me to whip up every dress she sees.  We watched Enchanted for the first time this week and every dress Gisele was in, she now wants.  I told her that we should probably make a list since the list keeps growing.  So she sat down this morning and wrote one out for me.

Her cursive writing.

The top one is "the white dress, the blue dress and the pink dress that Gisele has"  and the second line is "A Belle dress that is NOT scratchy".  Followed up with "A witches dress like the ones that Winny, Mary, or Sarah wears".  She asked me when we were going to go fabric shopping and get started on all of her dresses.  I had to stall her by telling her we had to find patterns and that takes awhile.

I need a team of mice and birds to help me get sewing all the dresses.  Anyone know where I can find some sewing furry woodland creatures?  Singing is optional.

Recipe Testing - Appetizer

Last night we went out for a date night and I ordered some Deviled Eggs as an appetizer and loved them.  The only problem was that they brought me three halves.  Three?!?  This doesn't even make any sort of sense to me.  So somewhere another half of my egg is wondering around the restaurant.  So today I wanted eggs.  I found this recipe at Kalyn's Kitchen for Sriracha Deviled Eggs.  Rooster sauce!  Yum!

I didn't add as much mustard because I don't really like my eggs tangy.  The addition of yogurt was a little weird to me but I did like how they made the yolk filling nice and light and creamy.  Hubby on the other hand was not a fan.  He like the flavor but prefers more of a dense egg.  Clover ran off with a bunch of egg whites after they where peeled.

Overall very yummy!    

The Wager

The challenge has been thrown down.

The wager was made.

The terms have been accepted.

The other night I was searching for motivation.  I've been struggling more than a little lately with getting back on the health wagon.  While I'm on it, I do pretty well until stress knocks me off and I find myself falling on my butt waiting to find the motivation to get back on.  Trying to get Hubby to participate with me is even more of a challenge.  The other night he came up with a little wager.  We have a small amount of money saved and which ever one of us loses the most weight by Christmas gets the pot.  Although at this point it's more bragging rights.  We both can get kind of competitive.  In the end we will both be a bit healthier and one of us will have a little more cash in their pocket.  I don't really see a down side to this situation, unless I lose.  And then I'm going to be a bit grumpy.  But I don't plan on losing.  I plan on winning.

It is so on!