When Blankets Just Won't Do

Like all women everywhere suddenly, I am constantly on Pinterest. I mainly pin cool DIY things to keep kids entertained, although the end result is always so much more work and less excitement than anticipated.  I'm starting to discover the dark side of pinning. Beside the time sink, it gives you this hope of having a neat, beautiful home, stylish clothes, delicious and beautiful things to eat, and lively and creative children. In reality you get messy projects with lousy instructions, kids who are unimpressed with the craft you spent all afternoon setting up, bland food served in the same cluttered old house by a frazzled mom in jeans and a t-shirt, and dashed hopes.


But the Pinterest dream life is a gorgeous one, and occasionally something pans out. As part of my no-shopping streak I decided to make instead of buy gifts for some upcoming kiddie parties. I loved all the DIY Fort Kits and decided it would be easy enough to whip a few up. Of course I had to buy various supplies to pull them together, but it seemed more heartfelt than another store-bought toy.


Naturally I underestimated the time it would take to do the only crafty bit, getting the ribbon ties onto the sheets. Or rather I overestimated both my sewing skills and level of patience.  Despite a good bit of screaming and lots of wasted thread, they turned out pretty spiffy. We also kept a set for our own living-room for adventures, though the ribbon ties may never make it on to those. Sorry kids!


My current vow is to lay off the insane super-mom ideas for a bit. But I plan to go right on pinning and pining. It's too tempting not to dream.

I *heart* Breakfast

Holidays are so exciting for kids, but it's hard to get into it without going overboard on the stuff. To keep it simple but still special, I snagged a great idea from The Happiness Project Blog: Holiday breakfasts. The night before a holiday I decorate the kitchen table using whatever I have around the house. I've gotten a lot of mileage incorporating Lucas' preschool artwork in the  decor. The next morning I cook up a theme breakfast with little festive touches. Nothing crazy here. Heart-shaped toast, red and green sprinkles on the pancakes, that sort of thing.

Lucas seems to like it, though I'll admit I'm way more excited than he is at this point. Still, it's a nice tradition I hope to continue. And not just for the major holidays. I fully intend to throw some curveballs in now and then. A Groundhog's Day feast?  Arbor Day brunch?  I could go crazy over here.

Here's this morning's Valentine breakfast. The flicker stream also has a few shots from to Halloween and Christmas morning.

Holiday Breakfast Set on Flickr.

Bye Bye Buy

I'm really not a shopper. Despite having worked at two shopping-based web startups, buying things does not come naturally to me. I am one of the cheapest people ever and mostly opposed to buying things unless I really really need them, and maybe not even then. Or at least I used to be. Ever since leaving the workplace for the non-lucrative stay-at-home mom gig, I've taken to the notion that wisely spent money is a good idea.  The cheapest thing just ain't going to last. Get the well made, the pretty, the right thing instead and it will not only leave you happier but save you money in the long run.

Problem is that line of thinking can get out of hand, and lately for me it had. Spending good money on the right things had transformed into acquiring cute but useless things any time I went into a store. When I caught myself browsing every aisle in Target wondering what else I might get, I knew it was time for a change.

In a nice bit of perfect timing, the ever-stylish Raven posted about some friends taking on a "no shopping" challenge for a month, or even a year. It struck me how easily I could stop shopping and really not miss it. I've got more clothes than I need. The library has books for free. It seems easy enough to work around the things I want by using the things I already have. Since time-based challenges aren't my thing, I'll be keeping up a streak. How long can I go without buying anything?  The nice thing about a streak is if you break it, you can start again the very next day.

Of course I'll still need to buy food and household goods. I'm not trying to live off the land here, just put an end to non-necessary spending. Gifts are an exception, but even then I'll try to get creative and make rather than buy. That's going to be the goal for most things. Making coffee instead of hitting the Starbuck's drive-thru. Trying homemade recipes for cleansers. More DIY crafts instead of picking up little toys for the kids. Already I've skipped buying character valentines  for Lucas' preschool party and instead printed out candy hearts on construction paper. Baby steps.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep this little experiment up for a while. At some point I expect the line between needing and wanting will get mighty blurry and I'll cave. But if I can stay more mindful of all the ways money leaks out of my wallet, it will be worth the effort to go without.

More Than Meets The Eye

As the season of store-bought love approaches, allow me to share the best licensed valentines ever printed: The Transformers Valentines.

I expected the cheesy lines like a helicopter guy saying "Let's fly high this Valentine's Day" but I was thrilled at these gems: 

 
 Romance Formula: [MYPERSONALPHILOSOPHY], Valentine!

 
 Keep believing that.

 
This one is nice for stalkers.

 
 BY KILLING YOU, AND THEN MYSELF.

Collect 'em all!

Chameleon: A Guide for Girls

 Wrote this in 2004. Feeling moody today so letting it resurface. 

The first thing you learn is to keep your eyes to yourself. You learn see without looking.  Never raise your eyes, or if you must, keep them focused away from your subject, away from the action at hand.  Listening also needs to be mastered, but that's easy to practice without being noticed.  Seeing, now that's tricky. Eye contact attracts attention, and attention is what you avoid at all costs.

The importance of absorbing the scene around you cannot be underestimated. The fatal flaw of the outcast is complete withdrawal. When you are completely detached from your surroundings, you stand out.  You are alone, but you must not appear to be.  You need to blend, and that means participating in the most minimal way to whatever is happening.  You see and you hear, then you determine the average expression, movement, reaction, and that is what you do. If everyone is watching the kickball game, you watch the kickball game.  If everyone cheers, you cheer. If the girls squeal with horror when the team captain is hit in the nose with the ball, you squeal, even if inside you are grinning and imaging he will be permanently disfigured. You do not laugh, unless laughter is around you.

Over time you will get to be so good at seeing and hearing that being unnoticed becomes effortless.  It helps if you come from a quiet family, a humble one that doesn't fawn over accomplishments. You must avoid developing talents that could bring attention.  Become adept at being unremarkable.  If you have nice hair,  keep it short or pulled back. If you develop breasts, hid them under a baggy sweatshirt.  If you're smart, make sure it doesn’t show. You need to be smart in order for this to work.

Your goal is simple: to survive. You aren't pretty enough to be popular, confident enough to be different or edgy enough to be cool.  So you must blend, head down, eyes averted.  Avoid being hurt. Don't mimic the beautiful girls and become a target of their mocking.  Don't pull away completely and brand yourself an oddball. Don't get angry and end up a troublemaker.  Simply blend.  After a while you won't remember who you really are. In exchange for your individuality, you'll survive.  You'll bury your soul to keep it safe. You aren't proud, but you're intact. You aren't much, but you're alive.

Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Christmas

I'm a sucker for those radio stations that change over to an all-Christmas format in December.  This year the Bay Area has two, and since holiday tunes make for kid-safe listening we've been tuning in an awful lot. After a few weeks of carols I noticed some trends and have confirmed a few with a neutral outside party (my mom). I now present my findings on this vital topic.

For stations that play Christmas songs 24 hours a day, they sure lack variety. With decades of favorites to choose from, they seem rely mostly on Jingle Bell Rock, Winter Wonderland and The Christmas Song. And at least 4 out of 10 times that I turn on the radio, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is playing. This song was was released in 1994, for those wanting to feel time rushing past them.

Christmas 2011 is treating Karen Carpenter very well. In past years I'd hear "No Place Like Home For the Holidays" or maybe "Merry Christmas Darling" but this year the entire Carpenters Christmas Collection getting plenty of airplay. She's got a wonderful voice, and even if the songs all end up sounding the same I usually don't try the other station if Karen is on.

Each year a song seems to be rediscovered and then immediately played to death. A few years back "Baby, It's Cold Outside" received a much-deserved return to the standard holiday rotation. Not so much for this year's apparent darling, a slight creepy 1992 Frank Sinatra/Cyndi Lauper duet of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."  Three weeks ago I'd never heard this song, and now I hear it daily. This "duet" is an unnatural hybrid of the pop-punk diva's vocals slapped alongside Franks' original 1957 recording.  Why now, 19 years later, does this song merit a revival? Ah, but it could be worse. There is an entire album of Elvis Christmas "duets" with 2008's hottest female country stars that mercifully has not caught on, at least not around these parts.

Novelty songs seem to be on the outs. I've only heard "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" once. Nary a Jingle Cat in sight. The wackiest song I've heard is "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas" which features a 10-year old girl with a nasally twang longing for a hippo hero. I kind of love it.

When it comes to the more traditional carols, "Do You Hear What I Hear" garners more air time than any other. The powerful Whitney Houston rendition certainly contributes, but plenty of other versions have popped up in the Christmas rotation. Why this song, this year? It remains a holiday mystery, like how Santa fits down the chimney and why I'm the only person who seems to love fruitcake. But I'll keep the dial tuned until December 25th. Who knows, maybe I'll hear some Jingle Cats before Christmas Eve arrives.

(For a less traditional holiday soundtrack, check out my 25 Days of Christmas Songs, the gift that keeps on giving, if what you want is funky holiday songs.)

Loving the Taste of Life

Have you seen this? I hate this.

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." Kate Moss said it in 2009 and the pro-ana community (yes, there is a pro-anorexia community) has really latched onto it. I see it pop up with alarming regularity on Pinterest and Tumblr and other sites that collect and spread ideas. Often they are part of thinspo galleries, photo collections of below-weight waifs meant to serve as "thinspiration" for those similarly starving themselves.

One thing I notice among all these collections: The sickly-thin girls are almost never smiling. They are smug, they are proud, but not happy. Because when the rush of seeing their thin frames disappears, they are still not loved. And that's what they are after. They starve themselves to reach a place they have decided will make them perfect, where they able to be loved and to love themselves. They are trying to get rid of themselves so they can find what they lack. It's a race to nowhere. No matter how thin they get, they are still the person they are.

The visible measure these girls have chosen is false. Because the truth is fat people find love all the time. And average-sized people, and skinny people, and people with crooked teeth, and people missing an eye. Love is not about how you look. It's about loving who you are.

To the worthless notion that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, I offer this quote from the movie Spanglish:

American women, I believe, actually feel the same as Hispanic women about weight: A desire for the comfort of fullness. And when that desire is suppressed for style and deprivation allowed to rule, then dieting, exercising American women become afraid of everything associated with being curvaceous, such as wantonness, lustfulness, sex, food, motherhood. All that is best in life.

A life locked in pursuit of an empty ideal is a tortured life. The things we can love about ourselves are countless. To live a full life we must look beyond our appearance and feed the longings of our soul. That starts with forgiving, with healing. It can never come from what we do or don't eat.

So to counter the damaging message proposed by the icon above I offer these images featuring the amazing model Yanderis Lodos. And unlike the catchphrase at the top of this page, these are TRUE. No one body type is perfect. Not every size is healthy. But loving the person you are has absolutely nothing to do with size.