Hello me time. It's nice to see you.

     At some point during the holidays last year I dropped off the planet, or the realm of the blogosphere anyways. I kept telling myself, that after we got through the new year madness, I'd find the time and motivation to sit my sweatpants clad butt down and start typing, but that never happened. Until now! 

     After what felt like an entirety of a summer break, Flash Speedman has returned to pre-preschool (what I call her daycare in a classroom like environment) two days a week! Last year I was only rid of her one day a week! Then the other day I was sitting next to a very nice lady on a plane who I chatted with for a couple of hours, mostly about our kids. Several times she made the comment "After having your daughter around all summer, you must miss her when she's at daycare." Ha! Don't get me wrong, spending time with a now 2 year old Flash is fun, rewarding, inspiring and just about every other positive adjective under the sun. However, it is also exhausting, confining, limiting, and, more often than not, thankless, as I know many other parents are very much aware. To add to my frustrations, my brain tends to not work as well as I would like and multi-tasking is not something I excel at. So, throughout most of the summer I teetered on the brink of a meltdown (fairly often crossing the line) as I tried to focus on the needs of my kid and whatever else I might have a moment for. When that one day a week of kid-free time came around I was generally found running from one frantic errand or appointment to the next. Now I suddenly have two kid free afternoons! Count em... one... TWO!

     Granted one day is still dedicated to what I need to get done and let's face it, I rarely complete everything I need to so some of that will spill over into day two. But that leaves me with at least a few precious hours to do something just for me. My mind spinning with how to spend that time! Maybe I'll actually get back to working out on occasion or I'll take a photography class like I've been wanting to do for years now. I could take some classes at the local community college and see if anything inspires me continue my education that was left by the roadside long ago. Maybe I'll set some time aside to work on turning our unruly puppy into the perfect dog if more time and energy was put into training. I've always liked the circus, perhaps I'll look into what it takes to be a trapeze artist or an elephant tamer. Then there are those private companies that are sending people into space, surely they need astronauts one afternoon a week, that could be cool. 

     With the unlimited possibilities I'll probably need to take my free time, snuggle up in my sweats that the puppy will undoubtably be chewing and dream of everything that available to me.


     
    

    

Baby, I'm back!

After a 9 month hiatus I'm gearing up to re-enter the blogosphere! A couple more weeks till Flash Speedman heads back to what I call pre-preschool and I find myself with a little more free time. So check back for more toddler high jinks, lazy cute crafts, and crazed mommy rants!

Put a cork in it (and burn it!)

     

     Time for an easy project idea! All you need is a cork board (Ikea has some cheap options if you don't have a plain boring one already in your house) and a wood burning pen.  I have this pen and while the price is right (under $10) I hate it, it heats up at the handle making it uncomfortable to hold. You can either draw or print up a stencil or if you're more creative than me you can free hand something. Once you have things laid out the way you want you can use the wood burning pen to burn directly through the stencil and onto the cork. It takes about 3 seconds of  pressure to burn into the cork. Once I had gone through my entire stencil I removed it and went back to darken and fill in areas. This one is pretty simple and it only took me about 30 minutes. I can't wait to pick up more cork board and make something else!

Operation Gratitude: Halloween Candy Buy Back

     Did your kiddos get way too many Mounds or Banana Laffy Taffy? Did you just buy way too much candy for trick-or-treaters? Get rid of the extra by participating in Operation Gratitude's Halloween Candy Buy Back and have that candy sent to soldiers stationed around the world. Find a participating dentist near you and chose to either donate your extras or they'll buy it from you for $1 per pound.

I may have bought a little too much candy.

  

Flash Speedman's Chicken Suit

    Since my brain can not shake this writers block I figured I would share pics of Flash Speedman's chicken costume that I made for Halloween. Harper HATED wearing it but in all honesty it was so worth it, she was the cutest/funniest chicken baby ever! Credit has go to marthastewart.com which had the basic directions. I wish had taken pics as I had made it but it was super easy, even I could do it with my very limited sewing skills!