That Time I Kicked a Hole in the Bedroom Door

Also known as this past Monday...

I was home with Luna for the day with just a couple things on the To-Do List. It may have been such a glorious morning and shopping trip that the thought "I'm like a Super-Mom today!" crossed my mind.  But then we got home and a series of events unfolded so quickly that my PMS-hormonal mind didn't even have time to process them. (In a matter of a mere 3 minutes!)

We got home from grocery shopping and I ask Luna to wait while I grab as many bags as my arms can hold and then Luna starts climbing up the cement stairs to the upstairs neighbors. We usually let her go up a couple but this time she's a little over half way up. I ask her repeatedly to come down so we can go inside. Usually she listens pretty well. Not today. My arms are full of groceries. It's heavy. I kind of have to pee and she's deciding she doesn't want to listen. I tell her she needs to come down and sit in time out and thankfully she finally listens.

The Sometimes Frazzle-Inducing Toddler

That was okay,  I think. Luna walks inside and sits in her timeout spot. I'm slightly flustered at this point hoping it will be a peaceful and good timeout. I hurry up and unload all the bags on the floor then take the dog immediately to the back outside so he can go outside to pee.

I still have to pee but of course that can't happen yet. I tell Luna to wait in time out while I run outside real quick to get the last couple bags. This may or may not work. She's not even two but miraculously when I come back in 30 seconds later she's still sitting in time out. Whew. I have an amazing child. I do the whole "Do you remember why you're in time out?" spiel and she starts getting silly and not really listening and I admit it annoyed me, but we worked through it and finished the spiel. It's okay. I can handle that.


The dog is barking this whole time I'm talking to Luna. I go run to let the dog in. Finally it's my chance to go the bathroom! I go and pee and walk back in the main room and the f*#king dog is peeing on the grocery bags, specifically a half opened one with fruit and produce in it. I JUST LET HIM OUT AND HE IS PEEING ON MY DAMN GROCERIES! I am furious at this point. All I want to do is scream obscenities at the dog.

I have a small child. I cannot scream obscenities at the dog at the top of my lungs because then she will scream obscenities at the dog at the top of her lungs.

The Cute and Innocent Looking Chihuahua

I admit I do raise my voice somewhat and command the dog to go back outside. He's not listening. This infuriates me more. I have to physically pick him up and put him outside while he barks and tries to bite me (aren't chihuahuas lovely?). All the while I'm trying to remain as calm as possible in front of Luna.

Luna is in the way and not listening and won't leave the room. I'm a little annoyed with her but I deal with it. I try to guide Luna back into the living room but she's too interested in the dog barking at the back door so I physically have to guide her back the living room.

Still furious but trying my damndest to summon all calming energy to my soul (Spoiler alert: It wasn't working) I try to quickly shut the bedroom door behind us so Luna doesn't run back in there and...I slam my finger in the door. 

I'm pretty sure was the tipping point.

Again, for the second time in less than three minutes I feel like screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs and cannot. My body couldn't hold it in any longer and released its rage in a backward kick to the bedroom door.

It wasn't a super hard kick or big kick but apparently the cheap apartment doors and the perfect angle and placement of my heel was just enough for my foot to go halfway through the door.

My finger is throbbing, I just kicked a hole in the door, and my loving child looking at me like I'm crazy. I instinctively dropped to the floor. Luna immediately came to sit in my lap and I just sat and hugged her and literally laughed out loud at the sillyness of it all and the fact that I just kicked a hole in the bedroom door. I must have looked pretty crazy.

-Mrs. 246

P.S. Why share this somewhat embarrassing story? Because I love reading about moms' not-so-perfect moments and figured someone else might too. We all have them and not everyone shares them in the internet world/social media. Sometimes online we like to put up the persona that life is perfect and everything is awesome in real life. Let's stop lying to each other: we all have our mess ups and sometimes they're hilarious and sometimes you aren't your best and you're not Super-Mom/wife/student/ect and that's okay. 

Feel free to share any of your not-so-perfect moments in the comments. I'd love to hear them! We can all laugh together at how crazy we are.

Take a Peek: Project Life March 2014

So, I haven't shared any of my Project Life pages since about....November. I took pictures of what I had finished for March 2014 this morning (I haven't done last week yet) and I wanted to share my layouts and ramble about Project Life in general...

I like to focus on getting good everyday pictures in my layouts. Pictures of things that show what we're doing or just a bit of everyday life. I love when people use really nice artistic photos in their PL but I know myself and I know in the future, many years from now, I'm not going to want artistic shots. I'm going to want pictures of my life and my family doing ordinary things.

Lots of my pictures are cell phone pictures. I greatly prefer pictures taken with a camera but some busy weeks a majority of my pictures are cell phone pics. You have to carry around a lot of stuff sometimes when you have a toddler. I don't always wanna carry a camera too but I'm always going to have my phone on me.

My layouts are very mish-mash. I use whatever I want but I do place pictures in chronological order. I do divide the pages up by months, but not necessarily "Week" layouts like a lot of Project Life-ers do. I would think that it would be to constraining for me personally. I already spend too much time of this form of scrapbooking that is marketed to be "easy and quick." Haha.

If you see in the picture below (and above) there's a "Week 12" card. This is the first time I've made one of those. I think I might start including them. Just because I don't make week layouts doesn't necessarily mean I can include week cards.

Sometimes I have a ton of pictures. (Like from my bike ride!) The best way for me to fit them all in is to make collages. I do have Photoshop and I even took a class in college, but I'll admit....I do my photo editing in PicMonkey. It's easy, it's fast. I know where things are and how to do them. It's my goal to one day learn to us PS properly but I'm not going to put that pressure on myself. Years from now I won't care what photo program I used...just the fact that I have lots of photos to look at. :)

It's hard to see in some pictures, but I put the date on every picture. If one ever falls out I'll know where it goes, but truthfully, I'm excited to look back and know exactly what day that picture was taken.

I went a bit crazy with some word stickers on this page. I didn't really care for the page. I thought it needed some brightening up...it has a lot of dark plain-ish pictures. Stickers...can't go wrong with stickers.

Often I look through other blogger's pages of their fancy PL pages and I sometimes have a hint of competition. ("Gosh, I need to use more embellishments!" "I need to journal more" "I need to color coordinate and buy specified sets!") Then I remind myself that's just not going to work for me. I've always been a "throw it all together, learn as I go" crafter. I also like to pretend that my style is sometimes that of The Burrow in Harry Potter. Nice, homey, comfortable...but not necessarily as nice and fancy as other people's styles. Not that mine is any "less," just different. :)

For example, like above, I could have re-written the whole card because I messed up writing but I tell myself that years from now it won't really matter. I want my things to look like I made them. Like a human made them.

Occasionally, I'll use inserts for a special occasion. We went horseback riding through the vineyards a week or so ago. We had an awesome time. Every time I started taking "selfies" on my horse I just started cracking up to myself. It seems like such an odd thing to do. But hey, I wanted a picture of me on a horse dammit.

These last couple pictures the sun didn't want to cooperate with my photographing Project Life anymore so sorry for the glare. (Photographing Project Life is one of the hardest things to do, I swear. Does anyone else have this issue? I've read articles and tried their tips...it's just never that awesome. Except for taking all the pictures out and meticulously laying them in the same spots on top of the page protectors for photos, but let's be real...ain't nobody got time for that. Well, some people might, but I sure don't.)

 

So, there you go! Most of March's Project Life and a bunch of me rambling in between. I hope you enjoyed it.

Has anyone else finished some Project Life pages recently? Feel free to leave you links in the comments. I'd love to check them out!

-Mrs. 246

Mr. 246 and a New Friend!

I've been posting a lot recently about what I've been up to, but you may be wondering what Mr. 246 has been up to...

He's been eating baby feet and that's okay.

Mr. 246 is currently a "stay-at-home-dad." Although I'd love to stay home myself, financially it works out much better right now if I'm working and he stays at home. (I really want to stay at home, but truth-be-told, he's probably better at it than I am.) He does a wonderful job. He really does. I come home, the chores are all done, Luna is super happy, and dinner's on it's way to being made. He even makes my lunch for me most days! (I know...I may just be the luckiest girl ever.) You know how some women say they were born to be mothers? I think he was born to be a father. He is the best dad I could have asked for for my little bean.

So anyway, he's been taking care of Lunabean, but recently he's made it one of his New Years' Resolutions to read 50 books this year. So far he's read one and a half and started a third. He's using GoodReads which seems to be a pretty awesome website. You rate books and then they give you recommendations. He says his recommendations were all pretty spot on. (I did it as well and all the results came back as children's books. Maybe I read far below my level or they think I should, haha. I might reevaluate the rating process, do it again, and see if it changes.)

I read some of the book he already finished and it is awesome. It's Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson. He's a investigative journalist and the book is a compilation of short stories of people he's met during his work. The first chapter was about the religious "coming out" by the band members of Insane Clown Posse. The author sits and talks to them before a show and it's pretty hilarious (although the ICP members are quite serious). It also includes such instances like: the silliness of Indigo children, AI robots you can (mostly) have conversations with, and "a pop singer whose life’s greatest passion is the coming alien invasion." I might be reading this book myself in the very near future. (Be warned, however, Mr. 246 says that the later chapters are about bit more serious and possibly depressing topics toward the end so it's not all silliness.)

Mr. 246 is also into little trees:

More specifically -- bonsai trees. He's been shaping them with wire and everything. He puts them in the window every morning and turns the plant light on in the evenings (as pictured) to make sure they get enough light each day. There's also apparently a complicated watering/humidity tray process I know nothing about, as well as fertilizing. I think they're cute though! (Especially the Juniper, on the left, which I got him for his birthday last year.)

Hopefully I'll have a project soon. I've been kind of lazy and just working on my Mario cross stitch. I think I may work a lot on my quilt this weekend. (And possibly make a tea wallet - I've wanted one for a while to take to work, we shall see.)

Have a lovely evening!
- Ms. 246

P.S. I almost forgot! I am on my way to accomplishing New Years' Resolution #8! I've got a pen pal! She lives in England! I met her on the HP Craftalong boards at Craftster.org. How exciting, right? I've written her a letter tonight and I'll be mailing it tomorrow!

Happy Half-Birthday Luna!

Not only is it the first of the year, it's also Lunabean's half birthday. She's a whole six months old today. I can't believe it. Her current interests and accomplishments include: sitting up on her own, sucking on her toes, and yelling at the cat and dog.

I did forget to include a "resolution" on my list: to be the best role model and mother I can be. I have one simple guideline for this: Do what you would want your daughter to do.

Sometimes I don't feel like cleaning up after myself, but then I remind myself that if I want Luna to clean up after herself I need to be doing it. Sometimes work gets me down (or anything really)...how do I want Luna to react when she's in that situation when she's older? Do I want her to sulk and whine about it? No, I want her to figure out what needs to be/can be changed and make the best of a situation.

I've got a lot of growing up to do and Mr. 246 jokes that we have to raise Luna and myself. Well, if anything, it'll be an adventure.

I hope everyone is having a terrific New Years Day and I wish you all a happy, fulfilling year.

Love,
Ms. 246.

P.S. Here's 1/365 on my photo project!