Reclaiming My Life. Again.

Maybe it's the coffee talking, but I am about to reclaim my life. I usually pick up Ellie at day care an hour later every other Wednesday to go to my counselor appointment, but I don't have my appointment until next week, because last week, all was bright and shiny with the world, and I thought I could wait 3 weeks for my next appointment.

Well, today I want to kill myself. <-- in that helpless, counselor-approved "healthy" way, where I just feel overwhelmed and haven't actually, seriously considered ways of offing myself. Promise.

My little toddler has become out of control over the last 2 days, and maybe this is just her new reaction to being tired, and maybe I'm overreacting about it, but I'm determined to reclaim my life. The apartment is a wreck -- partially because she threw a temper-tantrum yesterday and knocked over all of the bins I had organized, spreading toys, markers/crayons, stamps, everything... all over the floor. And partially because I keep falling asleep after dinner... am I coming down with something? Regardless, my apartment now has that post-earthquake-destruction motif, and I'm going to CLEAN IT all in an hour today. Ellie fell asleep before I could have her help me last night.

Before bed, she was still mad about the magic wand incident... She threw it at me from the back seat while I was driving home from day care yesterday, hit me in the head, and I veered off the road. Why!? She wanted me to turn the other direction toward the park, not head home.

Maybe I overreacted. I screamed. I yelled. "How could you!? Do you have any idea how badly we could have been hurt!?" She screamed louder. "Ellie, this is the 3rd time this week you've been throwing toys in the car. This time you hit me! I'm done." I drove her straight to our local thrift shop, pulling up out front in the drop-off parking space.

"Mama, I'll wait in the car," she said sternly.
"Oh no, you're coming in with me."
"But I don't have shoes on!" she yelled.
"That's okay, I'll carry you."

I pulled her out of her car seat, propped her on my hip, and marched into the store. I told the woman at the desk, "My daughter just threw this at me from the back seat of the car and hit me in the head while we were driving."

The woman stared blankly at me as I continued, "We'd like to donate this toy to a little boy or girl who doesn't throw toys in the car."
"Good idea, lesson learned!" the woman replied, taking the wand from me.

I glanced at Ellie on my hip. She was staring at the ground, with a sad, embarrassed pout on her face. I thanked the woman and walked out of the store. As I opened the car door to put Ellie in her car seat, she freaked out. She screamed, cried, as I calmly put her in her car seat.

As I drove toward home, she yelled from the back seat. "No. No! I'm telling my daddy what you did. I'm telling him to go get that wand back."
"I've already told Daddy that you will not be getting that wand back."
"Well, I'm telling Nini and Grandpa and Bee! They'll get me another one."
"Maybe they will someday, and that's fine. But not today. That wand has probably already been sold to another little girl who doesn't throw toys in the car."

The crying continued. I told her no back-seat toys for one whole month -- until she's grown up a little bit and will not throw toys in the car. I threw in a "no movies" clause, too. At least for local trips to Burlington. She may work toward movies for the trip to New York this coming weekend...

When we went home, she sat in time-out and colored the wall in her bedroom. She admitted she did this on purpose because she was mad at me. She did it, while watching me, waiting for a reaction. Was this just one bad day, or am I doing something wrong here? Am I not giving her enough freedom, too much freedom? Am I a horrible mom? The mommy-guilt kicked in, over ONE bad day. We had a long talk about everything, and I told her that the main take-away from this time-out was, "No throwing toys in the car." We'll discuss/clean the walls later.

When Mark got home, I asked for just a few minutes of quiet. I crawled in my bed and put my head down. After Ellie destroyed my living room, she came in, crawled over me, and sat beside me. I told her that, I know it was a rough day, but that I wasn't mad at her. She hugged me and talked to me about it. I forget that, more than anything, her anger is about wanting my attention, my approval. I told her a million times that day, even when I was angry, that I love her. Mark brought her dinner in, and she fell asleep halfway through eating it. She slept all night.

I know this is all normal toddler stuff, but I ended my day feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, defeated, and it was enough to make me want to reclaim my apartment, my life, to restore some order in my home. It's time that Ellie grows up. BIG TIME. I've been babying her too much. She needs more structure in her afternoons, and more freedom to do tasks on her own. This is going to come naturally when I go back to work full time (next week, wow!), but we need to work toward some more predictability at home now. I don't mean some kind of militant schedule, just some expectations that she can count on. Step 1 for her is going to be potty training -- because she finally asked me if she can start wearing big girl underwear this morning! Yay!

Her day care teachers tell me that she loves being on a schedule, that she thrives on knowing what her special jobs are and doing them all by herself. So, we're going to start with some fun, simple tasks that she can do and help me with, some more order in our house beyond the chore chart. As usual, lots of time for fun and play, too, and more time for Mama to reclaim some sanity in the afternoons.

Moon Sand

Every time we go to A.C. Moore, I cannot pry Ellie's hands out of the Moon Sand bin, or Sands Alive, or whatever you call it. I've seen it called Cloud Dough online. Mark is really into it, too, and he's been hinting that we should eventually get some for Elle, because it's "just so cool."

Yeah, but it's $20(!). Even though it comes with toys to play with, we have similar Play Doh toys. I couldn't see spending the money. I at least wanted to first try one of the Pinterest recipes to see if it compared.

Much to my surprise, it was exactly like the Sands Alive in the store. The only difference is that it probably won't keep as well -- just my guess, as the one in the store is reinforced with something that prevents bacterial growth or something. So what, I'll just toss mine after each use, because it's the cheapest thing in the world to make.

It's 8 cups flour, 1 cup baby oil
(or vegetable oil, or olive oil, if you're worried about your toddler tasting the mixture).

That's it. I split the recipe and used 4 cups flour, 1/2 cup olive oil.

It takes a little while to mix it. The oil clumps together at first, which made me think "Oh no, Pinterest Fail," but you just have to knead it for about 3-5 minutes. So easy!

I put it in an aluminum foil bin with some Play Doh toys, but any old spoons, cups, or cookie cutters will work the same.

She played with this for an entire hour. Then I gave her a bin of water to rinse her toys and hands. She spent another hour happily rinsing and singing, "Doing my dishes!" in a sing-songy voice.

Two straight hours, and she wouldn't let me play with her. Fine. I took pictures and read interesting articles on my phone. It was really relaxing and fun for her. We played outside, so the mess was easy to clean up. I'm definitely going to do this again!

All Settled In!

So, I'm all settled into my official YMIS office tonight...! Woohoo! In other words, I've reclaimed a corner of my bedroom!

The first thing I found out I needed was a To-Do List. Keeping my bullet journal handy is always helpful, but I tend to use that in the morning when I'm planning my day. I needed a little something different for nighttime -- just one big to-do list to keep track of my freelance and blog design tasks.

I had an extra photo frame that I bought at Christmas Tree Shops ($2.99!), so I printed a to-do list for the frame and used a dry-erase marker to write on it! Easy-peasy, as Elle says!

So, this is the first official project coming out of the YMIS Office! CHEAP Dry-Erase Checklist!

You can download the 8" x 10" printable (here) to make your own! Make sure to print it at actual size and trim to the square provided to fit it to your frame.

Now I'm off to eat dinner and work on my Dasha Kalisz Pottery site! It needs some tweaking!

Night all!
G

Pinterest Love

Photo from this (amazing) blog!!
http://alisaburke.blogspot.com

I'm probably the first person to ever blog about this. Ha. I love Pinterest. When I first started using it, it was fun to find photos that I liked and save them to my boards, but I didn't really GET it. I didn't see how it could be an incredible resource for everything I've ever wanted to do. Ever.

I mean, beyond making amazing craft projects (no Pinterest fails or cake wrecks for me yet, thanks), there's an overwhelming amount of artwork out there and tutorials for how to draw everything. If I want to keep making watercolor cows, I can, and there are tons of images to build from.

Also, I came across the Alisa Burke blog today. A fellow blogspot friend! I added her to my bloglovin feed immediately.

Why, you ask? Um, she has a post about making a doodled dishwasher, and the photos of her daughter are adorable. AND the pics of her working on the dishwasher are melt-your-heart worthy.

Bloglovin is also a new obsession. The site is great. The app is amazing and, if you want, they'll send you an email newsletter daily with the most recent updates from all your favorite blogs. If you check it out, please add mine to your reading list using the button to the right.

Other things... I've wanted to have my own art studio now for awhile (with free art space, classroom space, and a gallery), so I'm working on some (really) long term goals for building a house with an attached studio. It's my ultimate dream, so I've got some time.

Meanwhile, I'm considering putting together an online art studio with tutorials and demonstrations from around the web because, hey, it's cheaper than building a house/studio. Maybe my "Happy Muddled Mess" site can become a reality with a little hard work and design inspiration. Rolling up my sleeves over here! Ideas welcome!

Moo Do

© 2014 Your Mom Is Strange

Don't know how you do the Moo-Do that you do. So well. It's a spell, hell, makes me wanna... shoop shoop shoop, shoop ba-doop. Shoop ba-doop...

As we're approaching the mid-week mark, we're getting busier and busier. I have to add some final touches to a client's pottery website, I have blog posts to write, a writer's meeting, a looming release-to-press date tomorrow for my day-job's monthly publication, a 10am All-Staff meeting, a counselor appointment, a preschool parent meeting, a product review to write, must find flip-flops and pack for our family camping trip in New York, and in between all that I have to try to raise a (relatively) normal human being and exercise 3 times a week (one walk down!).

Mark cleaned my kitchen over the weekend, and I've been working hard to keep up with it, but the living room looks like some poor child's oversized toy box exploded.

Also, Harriet died. Harriet is the rabbit at preschool. Elle is handling it pretty well. We've talked about it a little bit, but when I bring it up, she mostly just starts telling elaborate stories about what she and Harriet are going to do for the day -- "ride bikes, visit the grocery store, go to the park, and go on lots of slides." Is she seriously using her story-telling skills to cope with this loss? That's kind of amazing, right? I told her we can talk more about it if she wants to. I don't want to encourage complete avoidance of the issue, but she is only two-and-a-half, and I have to let her figure this one out (at least partially) on her own.

Anyway, busy work schedule, appointments, meetings, messy house, dead rabbit, and Salt N Pepa songs running through my head, and what am I doing...?

Painting pictures of cows with hair.

Yep. Welcome to the Strange household. I can't stop drawing. After E goes to bed, I curl up in bed, surrounded by a sea of notebooks, pens, and paints, and I watch Forensic Files and just draw and paint whatever I feel like.

The night before, I had a dream about a cow with hair -- a beautiful watercolor, of a cow with flowing locks of gorgeous hair. I had to paint it. I've been wanting to do a study of an animal for my sketchbook, especially after the creature-drawing class we took. I had intended on drawing hippos, which I still can, but this cow dream really inspired me. I can't wait to improve my cow-drawing skills now and fill my sketchbook with new moo-dos (as Mark calls them)!

Yesterday, Ellie covered half of the dining-room floor with Post-It notes, lining them up in neat, straight rows. She was quiet for a long time, so when I investigated only to find that she was using my Post-It collection to re-tile our floor, I was ever so slightly annoyed.

"What are you doing!?" I asked.
"Oh, hi, Mama (sigh). I'm just doing my artwork. Want to help me?"

Oh, my heart... it's melting... melting... "Sure, I'll help." I mean, if I'm allowed to express myself and relieve stress by painting pictures of cows with hair, surely she can cover our dining-room floor with lines of Post-It notes to do the same. They're still there, on the floor of that room, which is apparently now housing a rotating art exhibit.

Yeah, I'm a proud mama.

Morning Routines, Dogs, and Doodles

So, I expected that Tuesday would be a little different than Monday. There's something altogether different about Ellie anyway, this week. What is it? A hint of... confidence? Is this just because she's growing, or is this chore chart giving her a little more predictability in her morning that she can run with?

This morning, she came storming through the apartment like she had a herd of wild boar behind her.

"I'll get the lights for you, Mama," she said, voice full of self-assurance.

It took a few nudges from me, but she eventually went in her room and took off her pull-up to start getting dressed.

"What do I do with this?" she yelled, as if we haven't thrown it away every other morning.
"Throw it in the garbage!" I hollered back.

With the same air of confidence, and the sound of loud, proud toddler footsteps, she marched into the kitchen, pants-less. About 3 feet away from the garbage, she threw the pull-up, making a perfect basket, shrugged her shoulders, said, "Got it," turned around, and marched back to her bedroom to finish getting ready. Mark and I lost it. Is this really our 2-year-old?

A few minutes later, she got "stuck" in her bedroom (she couldn't turn the doorknob all the way), and when I rushed to her rescue, she gave me a long scolding, "Mama. I was stuck in here. You were in the kitchen, and you didn't even hear me. I was very sad and scared."

I tried not to laugh but beamed with pride (she's articulating her feelings!!) as I apologized to her and told her that, if I had to, I would cut a triangle in the door to get her. She trusted this was true, because I've done it before (full story and pics here). There were a few other stalling moments, but she got ready on her own and was very proud of herself.

We were still about 10 minutes late out the door. You can blame me for that, though, and my "just 5 more minutes, Mark!!" attitude this morning as I tried to force myself out of bed.

----------

After Mark got out the door with Elle, I made my way to work. I was early! Woohoo!! But as I was driving, at a particularly tricky intersection, a beautiful golden retriever darted out of the bushes and in front of my car. I slammed on my brakes. She looked up at me expectantly. She slowly moved back to the sidewalk, sat down, and watched me drive past.

Not my pic, but this is what she looked like!
Source: http://mrg.bz/GB7ZCS

Ugh, my heart strings. Why was she in the road? She seemed to be wanting to get someone's attention. Last year, I saw a cat get hit and killed at the same intersection. It's on a hill. Also, my friend just posted this beautiful message on her Facebook page about her daughter who loves animals and would never let one suffer.

I pulled over and walked back to greet her. She seemed scared of me at first, so I sat down, and she came over to see me. Then she happily mauled me with hugs and kisses. Oh, I miss having a dog. I snuggled with her a bit.

"Can you show me where you live?" I asked her.
She walked back into the road.
"No, no, come here!" I said and patted my leg.
She nodded toward the other side of the road.
"You want me to come with you?" I asked her.
She took a few steps forward, then looked back at me, as if to say, "Hey Idiot, come on!"

Okay, I followed her, my tongue wagging too. One of my co-workers drove by and stopped to ask if everything was alright. I told her what was going on and felt secure knowing that she knew where I was, you know, just in case I returned the dog to a golden-retriver-owning serial killer. "Gah, Gretch, turn off the Crime-TV narrative already..." I said to myself. I was just being neighborly. Sure, people have been killed by being neighborly, but I'm being smart and safe.

And sure enough, that smart dog led me right to her house and sat down at the bottom of the porch steps to wait while I knocked on the door. She had that big, goofy, tongue-hanging-out dog smile on her face. And I was all, "What's wrong, girl? Is little Timmy stuck in a well?"

A man came to the door, looking tired. I asked if this was his dog. He seemed hesitant to say yes (ha!), but he explained that he and his wife were sick (excuse me while I back away from your door a bit) and that he usually watches the dog when she's out in the yard. He apologized.

No judgment here. "I just didn't want her to get hit," I tried to sound cheery and non-judgmental. The dog darted past me and into the house. I probably should have asked if they needed anything. Maybe that dog brought me to that house for a reason, and I missed a huge opportunity to fulfill some greater purpose, but I just smiled and went on my way, content that I had done a good deed for the day.


----------

And I reeeeallly wanted to blog about doodling. Am I really going to fit 3 blog posts in 1 today? Why not? I had intended to show you my process for art journaling, to inspire you to do it as well, because it's so easy, relaxing, and fun, and it's helping me live stress-free in the evenings...

BUT, I just spent the entire evening after E was in bed eating Ghirardelli brownies that she had picked out at the grocery store, drinking iced milk, and DRAWING (instead of creating a mini tutorial). It was so liberating. I've been (literally) biking my butt off and eating well, so I ate that snack with little guilt and lots of chocolate-induced joy.

The drawings weren't perfect. I experimented with drawing human figures (which I find so hard), but I can keep practicing. Nothing had to be perfect. It was just play time, but play time that resulted in a "finished" product -- just the act of filling a sketchbook. I had pics to share on Instagram, and the #doodle and #ymisdoodle campaigns have brought in a handful of new followers. Happiness! More to come!

If you've made it this far, congratulations! I'm wordy today. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Writing Process Tour

My writing process is a lot like waiting for nail polish to dry...

My sister-in-law wrote to me several days ago asking me to participate in a Writing Process Tour. I'm a little behind schedule, but here we go!

What are you working on?
Right now, I'm working on merging my doodling/artsy stuff with the blog and gearing it more toward some fun art projects as well as keeping up with the usual family stories.

Why do you write what you do?
Mark and I were just talking about this over the weekend! The entire YMIS project started as a way to easily document life with my daughter, from the perspective of a goofy mom, whose focus was less about doing things "right" or having a "perfect" household and more about just enjoying New England life with my crazy kid.

As I've had to focus my life more on raising a child and less on my creative career (swapped a stressful, overtime-heavy Senior Designer day job for a more predictable, part-time Production Editor position), I've made parenting my creative outlet, integrating art and exploration, using doodling and zentangling as my own stress-relievers, and taking on freelance work in the evening from some of my favorite clients.

Writing is part of this creative outlet, and I very much do it as a release. It's less about the final product and more about just getting thoughts out of my head. I've tried to create a schedule to better structure the blog, but more likely than not I'll just be writing anything on any given day.

Of course, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like the attention of writing and having my blog public. There's some thrill in wishing, hoping to have a swarm of readers hanging on my every word. We all want to be popular on some level, right? So, writing for the BVT Moms Blog has been such a fun experience. I get to reach (way) more readers while maintaining my own little artsy corner of the world over here at YMIS, and some of those readers have come over to visit YMIS too!

How does your writing process work?
Oh boy, in school I used to dwell on what to write, plan an outline, write a rough draft, then revise, revise, revise! No time for that nowadays, and it's easier, anyway, writing what you love to write about!

Now I carry my bullet journal with me wherever I go. When something funny happens that I want to write about, or some little family moment pops up that I think is funny or sweet, I jot down a quick note, like: "carseat hatred." I mentally plan a beginning, middle, and end -- from the fine details of what it takes to get my toddler into the carseat to how my parents brought me home from the hospital in a 1980s carseat that was basically no different than a Tupperware bin, propped between them in the front seat of their pickup truck. With enough coffee, the rest usually writes itself!

Throughout the week, while at doctor's appointments, or in front of the TV before bed, I doodle in my bullet journal or tackle some art projects with E and drop those on the blog when I can.

Above all, the process is fun, and my amazing kid, as well as dedicated readers, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook followers keep me motivated to write, which is why this blog is the one and only "project" I've kept up now for 2.5 years! Looking forward to another 16 at least. Let's get this kid off to college!

If you'd like to participate in this Writing Process Tour, just post to your blog with your answers to the 3 questions above. Let me know, link back to me, and I'll link to you!

Thanks for following us!
Gretchin

Doodle Time!

www.TangleTangleTangle.com

Hey, everyone! Today is July 1st! Woohoo!! And we're officially celebrating the fine art of doodling and zentangling this month/year/forever -- drawing just for the healing powers of putting pen to paper!

Wanna join us? As with most YMIS projects, you can do whatever you want! You can doodle wherever you want! And if you'd like some resources, I've provided some below.

Also, be sure to share your doodles with us by posting your doodles to Instagram with #ymisdoodle. Don't have an Instagram account yet? Maybe now is the time to grab one!!

All artwork will be featured in this corner of the blog: Mama Doodle (Doo)! (green link at left too!)

Free Doodle Resources!

• Want a calendar to put your doodles in? You can print the one I'm using (here).
• Some really great, simple ideas at tangletangletangle.com (here)!
• How about some pin-spiration? Pinterest has some fantastic doodle ideas (here).
• Looking for prompts? Rhi at Rhi Creations has a great list (here)!

Any other questions? Email me at YourMomIsStrange@gmail.com!

Baby Bread

My 2-year-old loves to bake! Here is a super simple recipe that we use all the time with any fruit we have on hand. It's been halved to make a baby-sized serving:

1 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. sugar*
1/2 c. milk
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 packet of applesauce (about 1/3 c.)**

*Sugar can be replaced with 1/8 c. natural sweetener like honey or maple syrup
**Applesauce can be replaced with a jar of baby fruit or a mashed fresh fruit, like one ripe banana

Mix flour, baking powder, and sugar.
Add milk, applesauce, and oil.
Stir until batter is smooth.

Bake at 350 degrees in small, greased, bread pan or cake pan for about 15-25 minutes or until knife stuck in middle of the bread comes out clean.

My favorite things about this recipe are: it's egg-free and can be made with fat-free milk and any fruit you like! The batter is safe for your toddler to eat and play with, and if all the ingredients get destroyed, you've only wasted about 2 cups of supplies. We make this a few times each month!

The Power of Prayer and Colon Blow

Okay, so this is how I think prayer works, or at least how it works in my life. I equate it with meditation in many ways.

Tomorrow, I have to have a colonoscopy. I debated about telling you all this, not because I have any shame in the matter but because I don't want to turn it into a big "thing," even for myself. My anxiety is getting the better of me -- mostly about the IV... ugh, needles, which I hate, and anything medical. As a control-freak, it's hard to let go and let someone else take care of you/do weird things to your body, even when I know that these biopsies are going to give me answers as to what my stomach is rejecting.

So, yesterday, I prayed to God, to my spirit guides, to the ever-encouraging image of Phil Hartman eating a huge bowl of Colon Blow, to help my anxiety go away.

After praying, my first thought was that I needed to have more information. And not Googled information. Google is an anxiety death-trap. I was nervous about other things besides the needles, but I didn't realize this until I took some time to focus, to pray, to meditate, to think. First, I had to deal with all the unknown aspects. I stopped at Kinney's to pick up my prep kit. The woman announced to the entire store, "And... what is it you're here to pick up!?"

"MY COLONOSCOPY KIT!" I yelled back. I have no shame. My toddler was behind me, climbing on the blood-pressure machine, yelling to the pharmacist technician something about eating boogers. She had taken apart (what I have named) the Automatic Hand Sanitizer Hand (dis)-Infecting Tray (the AHSHIT) in the waiting area and was using pieces of it to "make some cookies."

I gave the woman my money, suddenly realizing that I was paying $12 for a deep cleansing of my bowels. Ugh. I turned back around to see that my child had found a large crayon basket, dumped the crayons on the floor, and had colored a (beautiful) mural on the tile floor and on the remaining pieces of the AHSHIT.

There was also a cloud of poop smell around her. Miraculously, I was able to get her to put the crayons back and help clean up the mess. There were no tissues to wipe up the puddle of sanitizer under the missing AHSHIT, so I reassembled it and squished it back into place on top of the sanitizer puddle, using the excess gel to clean my hands.

When I got home, I got my little darling to watch a video while I sat on the couch and read through my information packet. I tried to breeze over the side-effects section, but certain words jumped out at me: "seizures," "vomiting," and "sudden death." I felt my stomach tighten.

I put in a call to the doctor's office to ask the logical questions -- if it's okay to take certain medications during the prep, etc. Meanwhile, I noticed that the information from the pharmacy didn't include when and how much of the prep solution I should take, so I called the prep-line at the hospital. An abrupt woman gave me the information, then said, "Well, I don't really know... let me check." I felt my stomach muscles tighten more and ran to the bathroom to get sick while I waited for her to return. When she came back to the phone, I tried to sound like I hadn't just gotten violently ill. I politely ended the call and debated cancelling my call to the doctor's office, since I had the information I needed, but I didn't.

I thought, it couldn't hurt to have another office's opinion. A few minutes later, a nurse called -- Nikki. It was the nurse who was on call throughout my entire pregnancy. She's the one who listened to all my questions like, "What is this funny, little pinch on my left side, when I get up out of my chair?" and answered sweetly with, "I don't know, but I'm sure it's fine."

"Nikki," I said, "You know me. I'm reading through these side effects, and I'm freaking out. I'm seeing that 'seizures' and 'sudden death' are on the menu, and I can't deal."

And, do you know what that angel told me?

She said, "Gretchin. In all my years of doing this, I have never seen anyone have seizures or die from taking this laxative. I want you to stay close to the toilet and have a good book ready. That's all you have to do."

And I said, "Oh, Nikki, it's so good to hear your voice. You were my voice of reason throughout my entire pregnancy, and I feel so much better after talking to you."

Sometimes prayer feels like a two-way street in which God meets me halfway, giving me the tools I need to cross the street, changing the streetlights at just the right time, and being my friend waiting at the other side, but I have to take the first step.

Don't get me wrong, I think prayer can also trigger miracles, shake the ground, and break the laws of the universe, but if that happened every day, exactly when we needed it to, it'd be a little bit like a superhero movie around here... because Lord knows I'd be praying for flying powers, a Hobbit house, doves to follow me everywhere I go, and green-bean casserole every night for dinner.

Sometimes answered prayer is a knowing, a feeling, a calmness that we have the power to fix things, to let God and positive energy move through our lives and work through us. And now I prepare for the "spirit" to move through me. Tonight is prep. Tomorrow is D-Day.

Smash Post

Download the FREE Printable PDF Here!

Okay, so let's get all caught up with this week's happenings:

1  The winner of the Extraordinary Print Giveaway was Danada! Thanks for entering!

And stay tuned for some other amazing giveaways this summer!

2  This giveaway helped raise money for the Bret Zeno fundraiser (more info at right). Bret's sister-in-law is hosting an incredible raffle over at her site, here. Check it out! The prizes are amazing, and you get to see some beautiful photos of Bret's family and the infamous baby bump! Go Zeno family!

3  It was a beautiful Easter weekend, and we were blessed with warm weather, outdoor fun, and some quality family time! After Mark and I spent most of Saturday watching Diggers on the National Geographic channel (Oh, I had forgotten how glorious it is to have cable!), Mark and my dad spent most of Sunday with Dad's metal detector searching their new property for treasure. They found: an old bed spring, a button, an old can of Bud, and some fence posts. No get-rich-quick items, but it was some good, old-fashioned, country-livin' fun!

And, it was super fun on Sunday to have all the girls together -- 4 cousins, all girls, under one roof! Mark and my dad were more than outnumbered. They were all on their best behavior, though! I even got some play time with our newest family member -- Baby Sarah. I showed her around my parents' new house -- mirrors, lights, and silly little songs to sing. I got lots of smiles and giggles out of her -- an aunt's dream! Haha!

I also got to hear my father tell E some of my favorite childhood stories. Mark got a beautiful video of it, here.

4  Now we're home, and I'm trying to jump back into Round 2 of my 21-Day Fix. I'm eating better already. I went to bed early last night, so I had time to get up this morning and get my apartment in order. I still have some picking up to do, but Mark did my dishes, and I'm feeling in control, which is just what I needed on this Tuesday morning.

5  I even have my planner all updated, so I know about the BVT Moms Twitter Party tonight (9pm our time)! Read more about it, here -- hope to see you there! AND I'm picking up some bookshelves tonight from my friend who is moving. Busy, exciting day ahead!

My least favorite thing about this planner, though, is the calendar page. I like to see a full-month calendar, so I put together this quick little monthly page that you can cut out and paste in your Moleskine bullet journal. You can download the PDF for free, here, and I made a second version with Sunday at the beginning of the week here! Print, cut-out, paste it in, and fill in your month info! I love it!

6  Check out my latest blog post over at BVT Moms Blog (here)! I reminisce about games from my childhood and talk about alternatives to technology (and why I love it so much). Ha!

7  Tonight, Mark and I will post our 3rd podcast. Yes, this time, we have planned it... (yawn). We're talking about technology -- growing up with it, our favorite video games, and how we're introducing it to our daughter -- healthy habits, etc.!

iPhone Photography

Sorry it's taken awhile for me to get to posting this! I know a few of you have asked about my process for taking and editing iPhone photos! I'm forever looking for new photo apps that I like, but these are the ones I'm really into right now.

Taking Photos

I really love photos that have a certain composition. When photographing people, I like closeups, but I often crop my photos after I take them. As long as they aren't taken from too far away, you can crop using the Edit tool right in the Photos app on your iPhone and not lose too much quality in your photos. I like to take my photos from a medium distance, with some background elements, then crop the photo to my liking after. It gives me more control over what I keep in the photo. Sometimes a lone tree branch or some mountains can add to the story of your photo.

To get clear and bright photos with my iPhone, I do the following: with the camera app open, while I'm taking the photo, I tap the screen on the subject I'm photographing. A little yellow box will appear and focus on the person or item, making them clearer and brighter. Even if the subject is standing in front of a bright light or is backlit by the sun, you can often tap the subject or a darker part of the image, and the camera will readjust for those darker values. This can actually create some neat, glowing effects when the subject is backlit.

Photos taken outside and with bright natural light will, obviously, have the best quality when using the iPhone camera.

When the lighting isn't quite bright enough, even after using these tricks, I use the Afterlight app to brighten them. I use this on almost all my photos unless they're taken in bright sunlight.

Afterlight
I am head-over-heels in love with this app!

For almost every one of my photos, I use the slider adjustments. This is my routine for most photos:

Clarify -- will lighten the darker parts of your image and darken the lighter parts of your image. I do this even on photos of people. At first, it might make the shadows of your images too dark. For example, in the image at right, the tree gets so dark that it almost looks like a black blob. I try to increase the Clarify option until the detail is almost gone. I do this, because I'm going to Brighten the image next.

Brightness -- This lightens the image overall, but (thanks to the Clarify tool) keeps the detail and dark parts of the image clear. The Brightness tool will also wash out parts of your image and reduce the Contrast a bit.

Contrast -- So, then I use Contrast to bring those values back up and create almost an HDR effect -- a dreamy glow around the mountains. As you'll see, at right, the lighter values (the steam and snow) close to the top of the moutain are much brighter, but the top of the mountain stays dark. The clouds are almost washed out but create nice contrast against the dark mountains.

Personally, I like my skies almost completely washed out. It's just an effect I think is somewhat whimsical in certain photos. My college Photography professor sometimes frowned on this (if there was too much cloud loss), but I think it's worth losing a few clouds over, especially if the rest of the photo has nice contrast and especially if this is just for fun, and we're not making print-quality pics!

Sharpening -- If you have a photo that's slightly blurry or just not as crisp due to the fact that it's a digital image, a small amount of Sharpening will really bring out the details.

Facetune
I wrote a silly post awhile ago (here), detailing how I used Facetune to essentially airbrush myself and fix all my face "mistakes."

I still occasionally turn to it if I want to smooth some pores or bring out my eyes on a selfie, but I've actually gotten more use out of the Patch tool lately.

I never mind a messy face or a God-given freckle, but the other day I got the sweetest pic of E looking up at me over a bike rack with big, retro sunglasses, and a beautiful smile. Unfortunately, she had a piece of food on her right tooth. I left the gooey food stickiness on her nose and chin, but I really wanted that piece of food gone!

I brought the photo into Facetune, zoomed in, and used the Patch tool to quickly cover it with color values from the other, clean tooth! (See final photo at left below.)

I've also used the Patch tool to remove logos and pieces of lint from clothing, to draw more focus to the photo itself and not some misplaced text or big piece of white fuzz on a black sweater.

Diptic
All of the collages for this post were made with Diptic. It's my favorite, easy-to-use collage app. It provides some basic editing features for any last-minute touch-ups to the image and allows you to create unique collages, edit the aspect ratio, and adjust border size. I've tried a few other collage apps, but this one is still my favorite.

Square-Ready
I use this app only occasionally to make longer or wider photos (and panoramic photos) square, with a black or white border, so that I can post them on Instagram and not crop any of the image.

Over Gram
This app is my favorite for adding text, mainly because I love the fonts it has (used for the "original" and "edited" text on the image below).

Line Camera
This app gives you a little more freedom with adding text (can be rotated, etc.). It has a lot of fonts, but not very many stylized ones. They're similar to the fonts you would find on your computer.

This app also has "Stamps" and some other editing features like drawing tools. I use it to mark up a photo or add hearts, stars, and speech bubbles.

Restoring Order

Housecleaning is such an emotional thing for me, like emotional eating. I know it completely falls under the category of "first world problems," but it really gets to me. I look at a mess and see all the things about my personality that I don't like -- my forgetfulness, my absent-mindedness, my laziness. The self-bullying just makes me feel worse, and I clean even less.

I've been trying to see the positive and give myself permission to let go a bit. We live in a very small apartment with no room for storage. I have a pretty happy kid who I spend most my time playing with.

So, here's what I'm doing. Some of these ideas are my own, but they also come from FLYLady's excellent advice on taking baby steps (15 minutes a day) to organize and clean, and the beautiful design and inspiration I find at Apartment Therapy (sites here: FLYLady and Apartment Therapy).

(1) I'm slowly working through each room per FLYLady's schedule, cleaning out closets, and making room for the things we LOVE and want around every day. My apartment is feeling more livable by the day, and I love that.

I just had a few days where I was in a funk, felt overwhelmed, behind on cleaning, and (2) I had to tell myself that these days would pass, that I could always jump right back into the plan per FLYLady's forgiving nature. So, that's what I did yesterday as I began working on the living room.

You know what else I did?? (3) I left the crappy cleaning tasks that I just couldn't face for Mark to do when he got home. I just did not want to do dishes, so I asked him to do those while I gave E a bath. Voila! Clean(er) kitchen and a more-organized living room.

And, I had to admit, when the apartment was quiet this morning, after E and Mark and left for day care, I looked around and saw change. Glorious change. I saw a much more manageable apartment.

I am also (4) learning more about myself -- knowing myself and what motivates me. If you're a regular reader, you'll know that I just love new projects, new challenges. They keep me interested. So, it's easier for me to look at "cleaning the living room" as part of a bigger project to transform the living space into something I love, even if that just means hanging some new art on the wall.

Apartment Therapy recently posted a list for learning to love your home and included a few great steps. One was to (5) buy furniture that you love, then (6) accessorize for cheap. I love this idea. I can't afford to buy new furniture, but I can give my current furniture, which I do LIKE, a face-lift or just a deep cleaning and build a unique style around them. I can also afford to redesign, organize, and make storage space in a room based on an inexpensive new piece of furniture, like a bookcase. Then I can easily accessorize with discounted items from TJ Maxx or even the Dollar Store for vases and frames. Now I just have to (7) pick a theme for my home, to make it feel more like me and to celebrate our styles as a family.

And in between all this, I still have to find time to do the (8) daily cleaning tasks like pick up the living room, unload/load the dishwasher, and still maintain my sanity. This is the hardest for me. I have no interest in doing repetitive and monotonous daily tasks. Maybe I can (9) make it fun somehow and (10) have my daughter help!

Also, stay tuned at the end of this week as I try out a Beach Body Challenge Pack courtesy of my lovely friend and fellow toddler-Mom, Ashley (Check out her Fitness For Living Facebook page here)! There are so many fun walking and running events coming up this summer. I want to be ready. Ultimately, I'd love to be able to run a 5K, but I'm shooting for 1 mile first! Baby steps! I know my biggest struggles are going to be making time to exercise, eating right, and staying hydrated!

How We're Surviving (and Enjoying) Day Care

One of the hardest things I’ve ever done as a mom was leave my 3-month-old daughter at day care for the first time. I remember driving to a café after leaving her off, to sit in the car, sip a coffee, and cry. There was also relief, glorious relief, after spending the last 3 months with my daughter literally attached to me almost 24 hours a day. Then relief mixes with guilt for feeling relief, and it all melds into this weird confusion and questions pop into your mind like, “Am I doing the right thing?” “Could we afford to have me stay home full time?”

But the truth is that, day care works for our family. No, we couldn’t afford to have me stay home full time, and to be 100% honest, I’m not sure it would be good for me emotionally. Sure, I would adjust, but the reality is that I’m the type of person who needs some “me,” time to be me as an adult, time to be my own person, even if that’s only at work.

So, this is how we learned to survive and enjoy day care, to get to a point where it worked, and continues to work, really well for our family.

This list does not include criteria for finding a new day care. However, this link (via Baby Center) has some great advice if you’re an expectant mother looking for day care opportunities for the first time.

The Obvious – Find the Right Day Care For Your Family
Trust your gut. I always imagined finding an at-home day care, but when my daughter was born, we were newcomers to our town, and I didn’t know many families personally. I received a few recommendations, made phone calls, and most women who answered sounded rushed and rude. Okay, they’re running home day cares. I get it -- it’s stressful during the day. But my sister runs a home day care in New York, and she’s always polite, friendly, and open to having a conversation with new clients. Business 101. So, I opened up my search to day care centers.

Housekeeping Disasters and FLY Lady

Okay, so you should all know by now that I'm not a great housekeeper. I think I'm a pretty good mom, though it took me awhile to admit that, and I'm still feeling guilty for hollering at E the other day when she drank water out of a dish rag.

And I think I'm doing okay at being a wife -- even if that means that this week the most I did was hug my husband, ask how his day was, beg him to take out the trash, and asked, "Are you okay? Are we okay??" as he ran out the door, to which he replied. "Yeah, of course! Always. I love you!" Ahh, isn't love grand?

But the housekeeping thing is just... meh. Here's my usual daily routine:

Waking Up (A Half Hour Late)

• Grab my bra off the bed post
• Trip over books and pile of dirty laundry
• While on the floor, grab my jeans that I wore yesterday from under the bed
• Stumble to the mirror while putting on jeans
• Make sure my hair isn't too greasy and try to remember the last time I washed it
• Try to figure out what day it currently is
• Simultaneously brush teeth and put hair in ponytail 
• Scrounge in the clean-laundry pile for a shirt
• Put on that shirt and decide it's too wrinkly
• Put on a sweatshirt over wrinkly shirt
• Remove toddler from hip by coaxing her with Cheerios and milk

Making Lunches

• Distract toddler with dancing and Shakespearean soliloquies in horribly bad olde-English
• Grab bread from cupboard
• Find turkey in cupboard from yesterday
• Throw out turkey
• Make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• Discover that toddler's lunch pale hasn't been cleaned
• Clean lunch pale
• Toddler wants to "help" (DO NOT ALLOW THIS)
• Lets toddler help wash lunch pale
• Change toddler's wet clothes (allow 30 minutes to 3 hours)
• Distract toddler with a YouTube video (must be longer than 5 minutes)
• Hit "restart" on video every five minutes
• Clean lunch pale
• Argue with toddler about why she doesn't need to help again
• Lie to toddler about the lunch pale already being clean
• OR pretend that cleaning the lunch pale is not fun
• Pretend it makes you cry

Getting Out the Door

• Send toddler out the door
• Give hugs and kisses 5+ times
• Send my husband out the door with toddler, missing half the items she needs for day care (not to worry, day care has extra boots and blankets)

I've only forgotten her lunch once, and I made sure to bring it over to her. I rarely forget the important things, and if I do I can get creative to make it work.

But sometimes "getting creative" is exhausting.

I'm trying out this new site my counselor recommended. No one paid me to say this. Ha! It's 100% free to sign up, and I've found the emails and plan that "FLY Lady" sets up incredibly doable and manageable, even with my busy lifestyle! Here's the link! Disclaimer: You get TONS of emails, so I recommend signing up for the "Lite" version if you sign up for the emails.

I've only just started this plan, but am already noticing SO MUCH of a difference in my attitude about housecleaning and the state of our apartment! If you decide to join me or have already tried this program, I would love to hear about how it's working for you!

Back to the Future of Cards!

I’m going to combine Tutorial Tuesday into a Whatever Wednesday today and show you how I made my most recent card and tell you about the FUTURE of my cards and prints!

I’m incredibly motivated right now to help this local family, and I feel like the universe keeps giving me opportunities to continue helping.

As of tomorrow, I won’t be selling any more of my hand-drawn cards. This was the plan all along, but I think some small part of me felt like I could keep this up forever and keep donating all the profits. That’s just not feasible right now, and I need to focus on the next step, to ultimately help in a bigger way.

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So, to sum up the hand-drawn orders: today is the last day to place an order if you want one, and I should have all cards completed by next week.

If you’ve already ordered a set earlier this week, they should ship by Friday. And any orders from today will ship next week. Thank you all SO much! It’s looking like we’ll have at least $150-200 to give to this family this week. Yay!

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Going forward, I’m going to take most of these designs, digitize them, and have them printed. Using this process, I’m also going to be creating some parenting/new-baby prints with inspirational quotes.

The great thing about the digital process is that I can mass-produce cards and prints, add color digitally, and have them printed and re-printed to meet demand. AND a portion of the profits will continue to benefit our sponsored family. (I’ll have more information soon about how else you can help if you'd like, more details about this family’s situation, and the “Donate” button on the left side of my page will hang out there, probably indefinitely.)

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ALSO. Tune in over the next few weeks as I (quickly) churn out my first few batches of cards and prints. I’m getting ready to set up a table for the Child and Baby Expo (April 12th, 10am-2pm, Berlin Elementary School), so these will have a baby/parenting theme!

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And if you’re feeling bummed at missing an opportunity to buy one of my hand-drawn cards, here’s how you can make your own!

As I’ve said before, I’m all about CHEAP shopping, BARGAIN bins, and CLEARANCE sales. Storm them to find stamps, and pick up a cheap stamp pad. I found this “Hello Friend” one in the dollar bin at A.C. Moore. There are probably still some there! I used a stencil to create this oval, but I’ve also traced Tupperware lids and anything else I can find around the house – kids’ toys are great! Also, think cookie-cutters and magnets. You can make some great “tangles” or doodles by just filling these traced shapes with patterns.

For patterns, I think I’ve mentioned tanglepatterns.com, and the one I shared here is from The Zentangle Untangled Workbook by Kass Hall. There’s nothin’ to it!

Some of these patterns did take me some practice. And, if you look closely at some of my hand-drawn cards, you’ll even notice that I made mistakes. That’s what makes them special, though, and it’s one of the things I love about doodling and Zentangling. The mistakes shape the drawings. Many of my sketches were transformed by a 2-year-old bumping my elbow. I keep some scrap paper handy to stamp on and sketch. Then, once I know the layout I want to do, I go right to work in pen. I use an 05 Micron Pen to do the ovals. It makes the outline a little thicker. Then I use a 01 Micron Pen for the interior detail. But any old pen or Sharpie will work, and you should always use what feels comfortable to you!

If you make any of your own designs and want to share, please tag them on Instagram! -- #ymistrange

My Planner!

Ok, so here's what I finally decided to do for my planner!

I had a lot of fun with this. I combined some ideas from different sites and simplified the process a bit for myself. What I love most about this system is that you can completely customize it for your needs.

First, I found a mini binder on sale at Staples -- I recommend starting with the stores that are least expensive and moving up to find supplies. My usual order of shopping is: Dollar Tree (500+ stickers for $1? Yes please! Some of the teacher stickers work great for this), Walmart, A.C. Moore, Staples, etc.

Our Dollar Tree store had large binders (if you prefer), stickers, post-its, and washi tape!

I ended up finding great deals on some clearance supplies at Staples and got the binder and dividers for $6 altogether. Raid the clearance aisles first!

I don't know about you, but I almost always have post-its (or scrap paper), random stickers, letter-stamps, and sharpies kicking around, so I didn't need to purchase those. I also had a hole-punch -- only a heart-shaped one, but it did the trick.

FREE TEMPLATE PAGES

For my first go at this, I actually measured and cut out some pages to put in my binder and sketched out some weekly and monthly pages, but that takes awhile, so I ended up putting together some quick printable weekly/monthly page templates that you can download in PDF format for free here. The file contains 3 different color options (blue, green, and pink).

TABS

My binder has 3 sections:

• WEEK Tab
  This contains my weekly template where I list my daily to-do tasks, appointments, etc.
• MONTH Tab
  This has my monthly template where I mainly list upcoming appointments, important events, etc.
• IDEAS Tab
  I've made more customized pages for this section, to have a little fun with it, and make crafty pages to inspire my daily sketch ideas and drawings.
• To Add -- ACTIVITIES Tab
  I want to add a page just dedicated to family activities that we want to try, directions to the location, and cost, to better plan our warm-weather adventures (if warm weather ever comes!).

I've been in doodle heaven lately, so this page on the left was one of my first!

WASHI TAPE

I'm finally hooked on washi tape after hearing other crafty bloggers rave about it for years and having no luck with it myself. The rolls I bought always shredded and never peeled off evenly.

I've now experimented with the Scotch brand ($2.99 at Staples) AND a cheap dollar-store brand. Both worked great, but I have to say that the dollar-store brand worked even better than Scotch. When I peeled the tape, it didn't roll back on itself like the Scotch brand, so no carefully unrolling your tape and getting it stuck all over your fingers only to grease it up and have it not stick! Also, it was quite a bit thicker than the Scotch brand, so more durable.

http://www.simplypchee.com

So far, I've only used the washi tape to stick things into my planner -- random scraps of paper to draw on or write notes, like above, under my "Doodle Ideas" paper. But, this crafty blogger mom (simplypchee.com) shared this image which shows what I found to be a really clever use for washi tape on your calendar.

I've had so much fun with this planner and have really put minimal time into setting it up. I hope that you find something similar that works for you if you're in need of a planner. And, feel free to shoot me an email at YourMomIsStrange(at)gmail(dot)com if you think of any questions I didn't answer here.

Happy planning!

For more ideas, see the links in my previous post, here.

DIY Planners

This week, between card-making, grocery shopping, dinner planning, and (oh yeah) trying to raise an empathetic, sympathetic, caring, nurturing, and hilarious human being, I've been desperately trying to come up with a system for organizing my life. Conclusion: I reeeeally need a planner.

There are some amazing planners out there. Some of the BVTMoms suggested Erin Condren life planners (here). For $50, you can customize your planner and get all the pages and organizing stickers/supplies that you need. I love that idea, but can't afford it just yet. I'm also hesitant to spend money on planners in general, because, let's face it, I don't stick with one thing for long!

Other moms swore by Filofax (here), which looks to be about the same price. The outer cases look rugged and beautiful! Waaaannnt!

THEN. In my searches, I discovered the world (and I do mean WORLD) of DIY planners. Oh boy, is my crafty-brain twitching right now. I thought that maybe I would put together my own little planner in a cute, little notebook. I even thought about making a mini binder and creating some cute (and possibly doodled/zentangled) planner pages that I could share on my blog. "Wow, I'm so original," I thought! My crafting fantasy continued until I was basically swimming in a sea of beautifully designed pages, and every mom in the world was downloading my products on their journey to become more organized.

Yep. Me. Mrs. Organized. The mom who found her phone in the bread box two days ago (true story).

Regardless, as you would probably expect, hundreds (if not thousands) of creative 20-somethings and moms have already done what I have dreamed about. Yawn. Oh well, I can still make my own and share my own doodle/zentangle pages with you, and I will if I ever get organized enough to get around to making them, digitizing them, and uploading them to Etsy.

In the mean time, check out all these other incredible DIY planners:
Pinterest Search for DIY Planner
Etsy Search for Printable Planner Pages

Some I really loved:
Love How Earthy This One Looks
Bright Colorful One
Alegria Printables

Quirkity Quack

I reeeeally love drawing E's stuffed animals and making them into little cartoons. She has this little duck toy, and I draw it for her a lot in different scenes. She loves it!

Here is a new take on ducky... Introducing, that quirky fun friend that every average duck needs: Quirkity Quack.

Spoiler alert: It's me as a duck.

I used the digitizing technique from my previous post to bring some smooth lines and wild colors to Quirkity Quack's outrageous outfit.

Digital Doodles

Okay, so after spending a good majority of my evenings this week working with Illustrator and my Wacom, I've come to the conclusion that I... hate it. No, hate is a strong word. I just feel a huge block trying to work on the computer. It's strange, because when I design, I need to work on the computer, but doodling/drawing/sketching, I just need to do it on paper, at least for now.

So, I've finally worked out a technique I'm comfortable with -- doodling on paper, then importing into Adobe Illustrator. Surprisingly, as long as the lines I drew were nice and solid, I was able to do a Live Trace in the program and add color.

And, guess how I imported it?? With my iPhone! (Hallelujah! Halllllelujah!) Quick and Easy!

I took a photo in good lighting with my phone then adjusted the levels with the Afterlight app -- The settings I used in Afterlight: Clarity first to bring out the black lines, then Brightness to lighten up the paper, then Contrast to bring out both the highlights and shadows. That order worked best.

Then I just emailed the file to myself, copied the image and pasted it into an Illustrator doc. I used Image Trace to turn it into a scalable vector image. I'm not opposed to tracing the images by hand using the pen tool or brush tool with my Wacom tablet, but I was happy for this quick fix now. Here are the settings I used:

Open the Image Trace Window to adjust settings.
I used default values, except for:
Threshold: 200
Paths: 90%
Corners: 90%
Noise: 25px

I'm assuming I'll need to use different values for different images, depending on the level of detail drawn, but I think this is a good starting point.

Once the trace is done, Object > Expand will reveal the paths around your image. You can select the shapes and color them or use the Live Paint feature to make it a little faster.

I'm really happy with how clean the final product is and can't wait to digitize some of my new doodles and zentangles!