Table for 10?

We had company for Shabbos this week, and one of my poor, unfortunate children found themselves seated upon (gasp!) a folding chair.  A small amount of whining ensued.  I blew it off, though, because we're lucky to have guests on a regular basis, and we only have "proper" seating for 8, although the dining room table can seat 10 comfortably...

So yesterday, I was driving carpool and I spied a pair of perfectly sturdy wooden chairs in dire and desperate need of immediate reupholstery. 

  

 Natch, they went into the trunk, and I was lucky enough to have leftover fabric from my last batch of chairs.  This was a speedy recovery---done in less than 40 minutes. 

In other news on the home front, I've been teaching art classes out of my studio.

My guys are happy to sit in. :)

And we have a new resident.  Meet Lizzy, our bearded dragon.

And I finally tried that baking-soda-and-peroxide trick from Pinterest.

Before (left) and After (right).  Whoa.

Her Creative Space

I have a work area set up for the kiddos in my studio, mostly to keep us all from losing it.  But last week, while I was getting ready for show #2, I put a couple of displays on their work table.  So Shani was left to her own devices when it came to finding a place to work.  Luckily, she's a resourceful little thing.

Oh, yeah. We're back.

I forgot to tell you in all the excitement yesterday that we made it back alive---and dry!---from Milwaukee.  At one point, Shani was begging---nay, pleading---with us to stop the car so that she could use the facilities.  As we were on the highway, headed through downtown Chicago, the chances of pulling over for a pit stop were looking pretty danged slim:

"It's ok, sweetie, " I was forced to concede.  "You can use your Pull Up."
"I want baaa-froom," she moaned.

Don't ask.  There was traffic.  There was significantly unfamiliar terrain.  There was a mostly empty 2-liter Pepsi bottle in the back seat and a pair of sharp-enough scissors in the glove box. (I said you shouldn't ask, right?)  Suffice it to say that we fashioned a DIY potty just in the nick of time.  How's that for an upcycle, baby?

Tips From the Trenches

I've lived to tell the tale, in case you were wondering.  We celebrated Moshe Yosef's bar mitzvah yesterday afternoon, and everything---somehow---went off without a hitch.  The boy did his thing in shul with a kind of finesse that his mother can only envy.  I raced home afterward to throw food on the table for 40 of the friends and family members who were able to join us, and actually had things pretty much in place (thanks to my faithful team of superheroes) before folks arrived.  Nothing burned, broke, or otherwise flopped, and as a bonus, I have enough leftover food to feed each of you and your extended families for the foreseeable future.

Don't try this at home.  But if, for some silly, silly reason, you choose to disregard my sage advice, MAKE LOTS OF LISTS.  Try not to lose them.  Do not make said lists at 3 in the morning.  Do not abbreviate.  You will have significant difficulty figuring out, by the dawn's early light, what you meant by "fls bma?" (And if you don't, could you please contact me by email?  Because I still have no clue what I was talking about.) 

Be specific.  Don't, for heaven's sake, write "salads" on your menu.  Because you'll certainly forget that you meant egg salad, coleslaw, cabbage salad, and green salad, and if you don't forget what you're serving you'll invariably forget what's in which fridge.  Or freezer.  Which brings me to my next important item:

LABEL.  You don't want to spend precious moments digging through the freezer on the morning of your event (while you're trying to hustle your wiggling,combative, half-dressed brood out the door) trying to figure out if this foil pan is full of apple kugel or veggie kugel, only to find out that it's actually a mixture of grated chalk and mouthwash that "might explode "if I expose it to the right combination of elements, Mommy."

If you're channeling Martha, change the channel.  Quick.  This will spare you the possibility of finding yourself at the dining room table, gluestick in hand, making dozens of tiny flags to adorn the brownie cupcakes.  Because people might not feel very festive if there aren't cupcake flags, you know?  And you owe them that feeling of festivity, right?  Yeah---not so much.  Ditto for the cupcake stand you felt compelled to fashion (at 2:30 in the morning) from hubby's discarded sheet of styrofoam and a spool of ribbon.  And the meringue lollies?  Not worth it, baby---not unless you have stock in Prozac (or at least an oven that's functioning properly...)

Know your limits.  (Then go ahead and blow them out of the water.  It's fun.)

A Cry for Help

Yes, girls, I'm feeling the blond roots today.  A few of you may remember a few months back when I treated myself to a screen printing kit.  And then, weeks later, I  finally bit the bullet and made something with it.  Yay, me.  As is typical of one afflicted with Craft ADD, I stuck the kit on my closet shelf and forgot about it for a bit.  (Now comes the hard part.)  I'd like to make something new.  I have everything set to go, but I can't seem to get the old image off my existing screen.  Please tell me I don't have to spend $25 each time I want to make a new screen, guys...  Nic?  Ashley?  Anyone?  (Bueller?  Bueller?)

Shhh...Mommy's having a meltdown!

Once I finished weeping at the sewing table, things started to look up.

Last night, having put the supper dishes up to soak, I realized I still needed crank out the traditional Birthday Shirt for Shani (who turned two today).  It would have been easy enough to re-use the generic "Birthday Girl" shirt that--miraculously-- still fits her from last year, but I'm pretty sure that the guilt would've devoured me whole.  So, at 10:30, out came the freezer paper, some fabulous blue polka dot fabric, and the fusible webbing.  (Except, of course, that the fusible webbing was AWOL, so I fudged it with a thin coat of Fabric Fusion and went blithely about the business of Martha-ing.)  The shirt was cute, with its polka dotted two, but something was missing.  "Yo-yo's!"  I exclaimed to Esti, who had stayed up to watch the madness keep me company.  "On the straps," she agreed, and I headed back to the Haven o' Craft in search of a needle and thread and some snazzy buttons.  Emerging half an hour later, yo-yo's anchored firmly in place, I decided to call it a night.  I'd been feeling dizzy all day, and all that was left to do was a quick zig-zag around the applique. (Insert creepy music fraught with foreboding here.  You know you want to.)

I awoke with a raging migraine, still dizzy, and the vague feeling that I'd been flattened by a fleet of Harleys while I slept.  I stumbled into the H o' C, half-finished shirt in hand, and sat down at the machine.  Quietly, prayerfully, I wound the bobbin.  Patiently, carefully, I threaded the machine.  Inhaling deeply, I set my foot on the pedal and began to sew.  Another deep breath as I  unpicked the vile mess that had issued from my needle.  And yet another, as I gaped at the hole in the shirt where my first stitches had been. (At this point I progressed from deep breaths to gasping sobs.) 

 I grabbed for the box of fabric paints and dug frenziedly till I'd found a color close enough to fool the uninitiated, and used the means most readily available to me to  disguise the evidence of my woeful ineptitude.  (We will not discuss, at this juncture, my inherent craft snobbery.  We will say only that fabric paint and fun foam are tied for first place in my book as Icky Materials Resorted to Only in Times of Dire Need.)  Teeth gritted, stomach churning, I made do with what I had.  It wasn't what I'd hoped for.  It didn't scream "I have a clever and nurturing mother who loves me enough to make me a birthday shirt." But it was done, and I was, too. I stashed the Birthday Shirt from Hell an top of the fridge to dry and went to wake the troops.

I know that my little birthday girl will never know the difference.  I know that if she did, she wouldn't care.  And I know, deep in my heart of hearts, that the sewing machine (and I) could use a little professional help.

A forkful of humble pie

I fully intended to build Ye Olde Chicken Coope out of reclaimed materials.  I planned to do it myself, without any help from the Hubs or our pal Dan, The Handiest Man On Earth.  I was sure I'd spend less on the whole shebang than I would on a single carton of free-range eggs.  I envisioned a whimsical-yet-sturdy home for my little chooks that would  make Rosie the Riveter proud.

I scoured Craigslist, Freecycle, and the occasional Dumpster for free materials.  I visited the local Habitat for Humanity store---and emerged with just enough hardware cloth to cover our existing brooder.  (I did, however, score a trio of vintage windows from our wonderful neighbor---Thanks, EJ!---but have come to terms with the fact that, um, I have nary a clue how to install them.)  

Gentle Reader, mea culpa.  Under cover of darkness, I liberated Jess' pickup and hightailed it to Lowe's.  Well and truly chastened, I blew a chunk of change sufficient to keep my entire neighborhood in organic eggs for the foreseeable future.   Reckless and utterly without shame, I even had the guy in Lumber cut the wood to size; for a quarter a cut, I bought my way out of the inevitable Equation of Carpentry Mortification.

Wendy + reciprocating saw = just plain crooked.

No two ways about it, people.  Worth every penny.

My Creative Space: Under Wraps

My biggest crafty challenge is keeping the Haven o' Craft from looking like the inside of a Dumpster.

Especially since there's a pair of windows over my kitchen sink that faces directly into my craftspace.  I was thinking about making curtains to protect innocent dish-doers from undue suffering, but honestly, I was daunted by the task.  But then, on a routine visit to Home Depot, I spotted my salvation.  Two Light Effects Clematis Window films and 45 minutes later, I had not only solved the problem of the view from the kitchen sink, but I'd created a focal point where once there was none.

Shoot on over to Kootoyoo and  check out some more Creative Spaces!

Craft-Fail

One of the four big commandments of Purim thing is to give mishloach manot (or gifts of food) to friends. And since I have Significant Issues Which Have Yet to Be Adressed, it's important to me that our packages have a theme each year. Having recently moved to Iowa, it was necessary to take advantage of the whole "corn" thing. So I baked cupcakes, frosted them with yellow buttercream, and studded each one with many many little yellow, kernel-like candies. I sprinkled them with white sugar crystals (salt!) and topped the whole thing off with square of butter-yellow Laffy Taffy. After plunging a pair of corn-holders into either side of my creations, I stood back and admired my work. Now: to package them. Clever girl that I am, I had the kiddos put together our packaging weeks ago. I wanted something simple, recyclable and inexpensive, so I went with brown paper lunchbags. Classy, no? Adorned with a little ditty explaining our corny theme and gussied up with a curl of green ribbon, they'd do just swell, I figured.

Now would be a great time for me to confess that spatial perception has never been my strong suit.  I'm perenially bruised from misjudging the exact location of walls and corners, and have a devil of a time making it in and out of the garage with my side mirrors intact.  Needless to say, in spite of my assiduous preparation, the cupcakes did not so much fit into their designated bags.  Which left me to dream up new packaging an hour before delivery.  Suffice it to say that there was cling-wrap involved.  The horror!  There are a disturbing number of secrets in this world that the universe will never unlock for me.  Cling-wrap is among them.  It was not pretty.  There was a significant amount of packing tape brought in to compensate for my substandard cling-wrap skill-set.  And yet, the goods got delivered, poem and all.

A slippery slope

Purim is a funny time on my personal Jewish calendar.  It's my favorite holiday, hands down, but with it comes a sense of foreboding---Pesach is right around the corner, and then, for all intents and purposes, it's time for camp.  And as soon as we get home from camp this year, G-d willing, we're making a Bar Mitzvah for my oldest son.  So, my friends...let the games begin!

To start off the "Purim season," such as it is, I baked my first batch of hamantashen last night.  (I also determined that if you use a piece of parchment paper that's much bigger than your cookie sheet, IT WILL CATCH ON FIRE.  Just in case you were wondering.)  I baked my second batch today.  And then my oven blew up.  Ok, I think the element died.  But there was a loud popping noise and a flash of greenish light, and for a minute I thought the cookies and I were done for.  Happily, we're all in one piece, but Batch Number Three is going to have to wait. 

Keeping it under control

In the middle of the night, when one of my brood comes in to my room to share a bad dream or a bellyache, I can identify them by feeling their heads.  Without my glasses, I make Stevie Wonder look like a top candidate for flight school.  And somehow, I always manage to misplace my specs...while I sleep.  Which results in an early-morning game of  "Let's find Mommy's glasses so she can get out of bed without injuring herself or someone to whom she fairly recently gave birth." 

Yeah.  So when this brainstorm hit, I was a very happy camper indeed.  This folding wire crate (trashpicked, thank you very much,) holds my book and a few other bedside essentials:  my MP3, pen, journal, and , of course, my glasses. I've been using it for a couple of weeks, and we've had nary a scavenger hunt since.  In my book, that's a Very Good Thing.