Speechless

I woke up this morning and knew immediately that it was going to be that kind of a day. Every cold season it happens at least one time: I lose my voice. So, with a stiff upper lip and a couple of lozenges I croaked and whispered my way through the day. The worst things about having no voice are, one, not being able to yell at the children, two, not being able to boss anyone around, and three, not being able to correct the K when he does something the wrong way (meaning not the way I would do it). As you might expect, the family was delighted that I couldn't speak and had a merry time of it, disregarding all my rules and turning their backs while I gesticulated wildly like Bloomberg's ASL interpreter. The only one who was briefly sad was the Baby, who insists that I sing "Jesus Loves Me" three times, no less, no more, every night before she goes to bed. I whispered and hummed the words twice before dissolving into a fit of coughing. The Baby started to cry and said that I scared her. But, she was not so terrified that she didn't require me to sing/choke it out for a third and final time.

One of the things I find so irritating when I can't talk is my inability to complain about the garbage that the children throw on the floor instead of in the garbage can. The Boy is one of the main garbage sources because he is addicted to these things:

I kid you not, he sucks down six to eight a day and I find the wrappers everywhere. I have found them under the sofa, in the cushions of the sofa, under the covers in my bed, in my dresser drawers, in the shed, in the flower boxes, and in his shoes. The Boy does not have a great track record in putting things away where they're supposed to go, in general. One time our air conditioning wasn't working and the repairman and I were checking on the outdoor unit, which happens to be outside the master bathroom. I looked up at the master bath window and there, hanging on the back side of the shutters was a pair of Boy-sized Batman briefs. I was pretty mortified, but yet felt compelled to point it out to the repairman. He was nonplussed, "I've seen worse," he said, shrugging.

Our family room and kitchen are connected and sometimes I'll be in the kitchen cooking and look over to the couch and there will be crushed Goldfish crackers, piles of granola bar wrappers and empty Capri Sun pouches littering the floor by our couch like the remnants of some kind of feeding frenzy. The only time the floor doesn't need vacuuming is when I am actively vacuuming and even then the children are sometimes dropping crumbs faster than I can suck them up with the vacuum hose. I feel like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill.

The truth of the matter is that the children often ignore my requests and I'm so used to it at this point that if I only have to repeat myself three times, I feel like I'm doing pretty well. This drives the K bonkers, so I'll say, "please put away your soccer cleats," to the Girl. She will ignore me, so the K will repeat what I just said verbatim, "please put away your soccer cleats." She will ignore him and he'll start to get that throbbing vein in the forehead look. "Mom said, 'please put away your soccer cleats.'" If she ignores the request for the third time, then we're all doomed because then it's not about the soccer cleats at all, it's about respect. So, while the Girl finally drags herself off the couch to put the cleats away, we're all treated to a dissertation on respect and listening and some other stuff that I tune out because obviously, it couldn't be directed at me!

All of my complaints about being voiceless seem appropriate because I know that a lot of the Hurricane Sandy victims are feeling like they aren't being heard. Did you all catch the telethon last night? I saw the very end, but I heard that it was a bit of a hot mess at times. Live broadcasts are like that, I guess. Remember when Kayne West went off-script at the Hurricane Katrina telethon. I don't suppose that there was much danger of a repeat since it's unlikely that anyone would accuse President Obama of not caring "about black people."

I spoke to my father yesterday morning when I wasn't a mute (is that the right term?) and the man has gone into "Man Versus Wild" mode. They still don't have power, so I asked him what they're eating. "Well," he said, "I remembered this recipe from the New York Times that had rice with chick peas and pumpkin. We didn't have any canned pumpkin, so I got our jack-o-lantern and I chopped that up and cooked it with the rice and chick peas." Stop the madness! My father is eating his Halloween decorations. Of course, this was entirely his choice, it's not like they're running out of food and he's treeing squirrels to eat and twisting hay into sticks to burn like in "The Long Winter."

I can joke about this because he has a house and he has water to drink and a gas stove and gas hot water heater, so he's really in pretty good shape comparatively.

I've donated to the relief fund, but really wish that I could go up there to help out in some other way. This exchange on Facebook between two of my high school classmates demonstrates how, while we all want to help out in a time of crisis, we don't always know the best way. The poster is a woman who lives in North Carolina:

My kids caught a glimpse of the footage during the benefit last night.......came in my room a few minutes ago and told me they were sending their Halloween candy to the kids in NJ, because they couldn't trick or treat. 
Warms my heart......

 Really, a very generous thought by her children. The following comment is from a man who lives in New Jersey:

Very sweet. Did they happen to get any gasoline in their trick-or-treat bags this year?

It's just that kind of attitude that will get New Jersey through this crisis. New Jersians will eat their holiday decor and ask for exactly what they need. Well, off to bed. I hope that I'm able to get back some of my voice so that I can cheer at the Boy's last baseball game and the Baby's last soccer game of the season. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

We are Thankful

I decided that we needed to start a new Thanksgiving tradition this year. Our old traditions of eating too much, arguing about politics, and watching football are fine, but somehow they don't really capture the spirit of the holiday. So, I decided that we should make a wreath of thanks. I was inspired by this give thanks tree that I saw on Dixie Delights:

You make a bunch of paper leaves and you choose something that you are thankful each day, write it on the leaf, and stick it to the tree. Brilliant. But, I read the brief tutorial that Amanda gave to make the tree and she lost me at a "width" of cream felt. I started to panic because I don't know what a "width" is and I'm sure that if I pop into our local Hancock Fabrics and ask for a width of fabric, the ladies will laugh me out of the place because they will know that I have no clue what I'm doing. Also, I figured that in between Halloween, several birthdays, a school fall learning celebration for the girl that I'm working on, and the usual sports and activities, I had approximately one hour and 17 minutes to spend on the project.

I immediately thought of a wreath. Since my success with the Halloween wreath, I consider myself the wreath queen of, well, the family, anyway. The Girl might take me down someday in a "Great Santini"-type one-on-one-wreath-off battle, but until then I'll reign supreme. Getting back to the project, I went into the study/junk room/catch-all room/don't-open-the-closet-or-you'll-be-buried-by-throw-pillows room, and pulled out one of the three willow wreaths I have left from my Tarjay excursion. I'm recently obsessed with burlap and decided that the wreath had to be burlap. I mustered up my courage and went to Hancock. I tried to act all nonchalant as I walked past all the sewing-type things that I don't understand. I found the burlap without asking anyone and dragged the bolt over to the cutting table and asked for two yards. The lady asked me what I was going to use it for and I told her a wreath. She gave me a look that was skepticism combined with pity. I also picked up some pieces of brown felt, just in case.

After some trial and error, I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to cut a strip of burlap and wrap it around the wreath. Of course, because the children are always swiping my scissors, I had to go on a hunt for my fabric scissors (only called such because they're actually somewhat sharp). I didn't find my scissors, but I did find this:

How does the Baby/Audrey the Moose come up with this stuff? When I see a smushy styrofoam toy, my first thought is not, "Hmmm, let me cut this up with my leopard scissors." But, I guess I'm not a three year old with a scape moose to blame.

Also, Audrey must have been shooting craps while destroying the little fellow:

So, I cut a strip of burlap and also cut up the felt into strips, as well:

I wrapped them around the wreath, alternating the felt and the burlap so that it looked like this when I was finished:

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the actual process, I was only about 30% sure it would work and even finished, I'm still not entirely sure. I hot glued the end of the burlap to the wreath and then set out to make it look a little nicer. I tied a burlap ribbon (told y'all I was obsessed) around the top to hang it and finished off with a little bell we got when we rode the Polar Express a couple years ago:

When the Baby got home and confessed to absolutely nothing with regard to the the doll evisceration (be glad that she's on our side, folks), I put her to work on the leaf aspect of the wreath. I made a cardboard template and cut around it to make some leaves:

Then my child laborer stuck the hook part of some velcro dots on the backs of the leaves. Little fingers are so good at doing the delicate work:

Because I have a compulsive shopping problem when it comes to the $1 area of Target I had some maple leaf-shaped felt coasters (?) that we also velcro dotted. We put all the leaves in a glass vase and decorated it:

The final part of this project is a list so we can keep track of what we are thankful for each day:

So, this is how it would look with a few leaves stuck on:

I figure that on Thanksgiving, we'll go through the whole list and read everything for which we are thankful. So, for November 1st we got these responses:
The Girl - my life (awww)
The Boy - the iPad
The Baby - flowers (and scissors, apparently)
Me - that we're in a safe house with electricity
The K - our family (double awww)

My response was such because I've been reading and hearing all the coverage of just how horrible things are in New Jersey. The pictures of the devastation at the shore, Hoboken under water, gas leaks threatening to burn what is still left standing are all heartbreaking. My step-mother sent me this picture last night:

This is the house that I grew up in from age 13 until I graduated from high school. Mom sold it in 2009. My bedroom was just to the right of the porch gable. The tree crushed the front porch and tore the  gutters off the roof above the master bedroom. Thank goodness no one was hurt. I received many pictures just like these of the destruction in my little 1 square mile home town. I am so thankful that all my friends and family are safe, but cleaning up from a storm like this will take years.

I hope that this Thanksgiving we won't just say we're thankful for things, but that we will be genuinely thankful for all the lucky things in our lives. Of course, we'll still have the football and the eating too much, but I hope that the wreath will be a new tradition that everyone will enjoy. Happy Thursday, everyone.