7 Quick Takes about Packing Anxiety, Bringing My Crazy to New York, and Sanitizing the Revolutionary War

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! That means 7 quick thoughts for the last 7 days.

—1—

We did it! We went to New York City! Just Phillip and I, for 6 glorious days while his mom watched the kids.

Here's the conversation Phillip and I had the night before leaving:

Phillip: Relax! Why are you so antsy?
Me: We leave tomorrow. We need to pack! Or at least make a list, or get organized or something!
Phillip: ... But we don't leave until tomorrow.
Me: I'm used to traveling with the kids, when you need to pack the entire house and it takes two days.
Phillip: Well, I travel for work all the time and packing for just yourself takes 15 minutes.
Me: I don't believe you.
Phillip: All you need is a phone, underwear, and a credit card.
Me: I'm still nervous.
Phillip: Okay, then. Let's plan. What is there to plan?
Me: Lots of stuff!
Phillip: Like what?
Me: Well... I need clothes. And a pair of shoes. And... I guess that's it.

He was right, it really did take 15 minutes to pack in the morning.

—2—

My favorite things about the trip, in order of importance, were:

1. Having an average wake-up time of 9:30
2. Flexibility around mealtime (when we weren't hungry at lunchtime we just skipped it and NO ONE complained)
3. Bringing dessert back to the hotel room and I didn't have to wash dishes or even empty the trash after I threw the packaging away
4. Did I mention the hotel maid?
5. Oh yeah, all the cool stuff we saw in NYC

I don't think I realized until we went away how much we needed a vacation.

—3—

I also didn't realize until we got back how nuts our life was. On my first morning back on the job, when I had to drag myself out of bed at obscene o'clock in the morning and get 3 older kids up and ready for school while taking care of the baby and the preschooler, I was in total shock. I used to do this every day?

No wonder I can never get anything done and I'm crazy.

—4—

One thing I missed while in New York was coming across really odd toy set ups and wondering what they meant or how they came to be.

I was putting away some of the 3,000 shoes scattered all over the house when I came across this happy little guy hanging out on the handle of the closet door.

Is he blasting off? Riding a horse? Doing the robot? All are distinct possibilities.

—5—

Our kids have always liked art, but have mostly kept it contained to paper and coloring books. With the exception of my oldest scratching her and her best friend's names into the side of our van with a rock when she was in kindergarten, it's been pretty smooth sailing in the art department.

Until recently. Our 3-year-old colors on everything. I've removed her penmanship from our sofa, the wall, library books, and toys around the house more times than I can count.

Her most recent discovery? That coloring on yourself when you're supposed to be napping helps to pass the time.

Wherever you go (with a marker,) there you are.

—6—

Who's sick of seeing the "countdown to summer vacation" type posts on Facebook? I am, but it's strictly because I'm jealous.

My kids' last day of school isn't until the end of June. I don't want to talk about it.

I realize there's a law about the number of school days kids must have, but let's be honest. At this point, pretty much all they're doing is pizza parties, field trips, and in-class movies anyway.

I just want them to give me my children back and stop making us wake up at 6:30 every morning.

—7—

My 5th grader brought home a letter from the teachers explaining Battlefield Day, the culminating activity of their study on the Revolutionary War. Sounds like it's going to be a pretty cool project, but this line made me laugh:

Well, that's a relief! Because the last thing you'd want messing up your battlefield is VIOLENCE!
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9 Telltale Signs Your Kids Read Too Much

When I browse through the parenting section at the library, I see titles like Encouraging the Reluctant Reader and Raising Kids Who Love Books. 

What I don't see is the one called How to Get Your Kid's Nose Out of a Book and Breathe Some Fresh Air or Something. If I did, I would totally check that one out of the library.

In our house, we're blessed with 5 fantastic kids who love reading. So much that they can hardly ever complete a task without getting distracted and being sucked into a book. For them, reading books is like breathing air: it's an automatic process, and if they stop they'll probably die.

Sure there are worse problems, but living in a house full of kids who love books too much comes with its own interesting set of problems. If you live with our kids, this is what your life is like:

1. Your kids have sustained repeated reading-related injuries. This is why we have a "no reading while going down the stairs" rule. Also why our kids walk into walls regularly.

Left to their own devices, they'll read at the dinner table, while brushing their teeth, or secretly under the desk at school when they're supposed to be listening to the teacher.

2. Nothing is safe from being read. Assembly instructions, boy scouting manuals, junk mail... if you leave it lying around, they will read it.

Then you'll feel like a bad mom when your 10-year-old devours Divergent in a single sitting because you left it out on the coffee table and she thought it looked interesting. Oops.

3. You devise elaborate systems to limit their reading. During the summers, the kids earn points they can trade in for reading time, like some parents do for screen time. Maybe they need this because we don't have a TV, but I don't really know for sure.

What I do know is that without limits, the kids would read until their vision blurs and they pass out from starvation.

4. Your kids mispronounce everything. My voracious readers have huge vocabularies and are excellent spellers, but they've never heard anyone say 70% of the words they read in books.

My daughter recently came to me asking, "Mom, what's a 'deh-butt' novel?" It took me a while to figure out that she wanted to know what the word 'debut' meant. Now I just ask them to spell it for me if they show up talking nonsense.

5. They also say things that are never said out loud, only written. When they're exasperated, my older kids actually say "Hmph!" Surprise them and they'll yell "Ack!" Frustrate them and they'll roll their eyes and moan, "Ugh."

I don't mean that they make the sounds those words roughly approximate. They pronounce them with perfect precision. It's like living in a Peanuts cartoon.

6. You boycott the library's summer reading program. We tried to do it one year. The kids were constantly losing their paper or forgetting to bring it with them. I was a basketcase trying to time their reading (which is like trying to track exactly how long a bird spends in flight.)

Now the librarian doesn't even ask if we want to sign up, because she knows I will say "Nope!" with a smile and continue checking out 50+ books with my kids every week. They love to read, but logging their minutes is the worst. Which leads to another point...

7. You passionately hate school reading logs. I guess every parent everywhere hates signing reading logs. But I really hate it. Every day the kids try to pull one over one me: "But I have to sit here and read for 20 minutes! It's part of my homework!"

My answer to that is always the same: "You've read for hours today before school, both ways on the bus, at free time during class, and after you got home. You've done your reading log, today and every day. Stop worrying about it, I will sign whatever you give me."

8. Your kids speak in British English, even though they've never so much as visited the U.K. Our kids' obsession with Harry Potter deserves an entire post (or maybe an entire blog) of its own, but that's a story for another time.

I think it's enough to say that when I ask how much homework they have, they'll either reply "a bit" or "loads," and when I ask if they're done they'll answer, "Nearly!" Am I the only one who needs Google translator to tell me what the heck my kids are talking about?

9. Books are littered all over the house — along with strange bookmarks. Despite your efforts to keep them corralled on the bookshelf, books are everywhere. Every night you'll feel like the circulation manager at the library shelving the teetering stacks of books you've collected from all the rooms of your house.

And even though you keep a big tray of actual bookmarks right by the bookshelf, the kids will just use whatever random nearby object they can grab to mark their place in their book, such as:

Socks:

Hammers:

Water bottles:

Seat belts:

Forks:

Or, because my daughter is into art, the butts of posable figure-drawing dummies:

Does this sound like your house? Can you relate? Make sure to check out 9 More Signs Your Kids Read Way Too Much if you answered yes!

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It's Not Body Shaming, It's Called Modesty

I've been seeing a lot of headlines recently accusing unfair school dress codes of "body shaming," particularly focusing on female students.

No matter what the specifics of the article, the reader comments are the same:

"Boys need to just control their own thoughts."

"If you're looking at these girls in a sexual way, it's your problem."

"You don't have to look at it if you don't like it."

But something is missing in our conversations about dress codes. Where is the word "respect?" 

To think about it another way, imagine that I walked in wearing a big sandwich sign with something offensive printed on it. It could be profanity directed at you, it could be a racial slur... use your imagination.

Sure, I could defend it by saying "I can wear whatever I want, if you have a problem with it then just look away!" But that doesn't make sense, not really, because if you've been offended it means you've already seen it. You've already been disrespected.

Yes, you can look away and forget about it, but wouldn't it be better if I hadn't worn it in the first place?

What benefit would I really gain from wearing it, anyway?

And even if I have the right to wear it, does it mean I should?

I wonder why those questions are also missing from the conversation on dress codes and modesty.

Like an offensive shirt slogan, suggestive clothes are distracting for all students, both boys and girls. Believe it or not, there are people who aren't comfortable seeing the private parts of a person's body prominently displayed (whether that means skimpy clothes that bare all, or skin-tight clothes that make every dimple visible from outer space.)

What about showing those people respect?

Somewhere along the line, it seems that being able to do, say, and wear whatever we want became more important than being considerate.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how well we teach our young men and women not to see each other as objects, we're all biologically hardwired to respond with a sexual thought when we see a sexual sight — like someone dressed in sexy clothes.

There are amazing young men out there trying to be gentlemen, and amazing young women out there trying to be ladies, who look away and try to push objectifying thoughts out of their heads every day. But wouldn't it be nice if everyone dressed with more modesty in public, out of simple respect for those boys and girls? 

I'm not saying that anyone is completely responsible for anyone else's thoughts, but that doesn't mean we can't be considerate of others when we get dressed in the morning all the same.

"Body shaming" has become a hollow buzzword, thrown around to silence any call for respectful dress in our schools. You want me to dress modestly? You are body shaming me!

Let's be honest about what body shaming really is.

Body shaming is hurtful self-talk, calling yourself fat, ugly, disgusting. Body shaming is telling someone else that they don't have worth because their appearance doesn't measure up. That kind of body shaming — actual body shaming — has no place in a respectful society.

Dressing modestly does.

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7 Quick Takes about Unmanicured Eyebrows, Using the 5-Second Rule on Public Transit, and How to Steal a Car

I'ts 7 Quick Takes Friday! That's 7 quick thoughts for the last 7 days.

—1—

After our library's preschool storytime, the kids tore up black paper to make any kind of panda they wanted.

My daughter chose Unibrow Panda.

Just eating bamboo shoots and not tweezing my eyebrows.

She insisted that the unibrow was actually an "ear," that it went right in the middle of his forehead, and that he only needed one of them.

—2—

My in-laws came to visit and while they were here we did the whole tourist thing, including a tour on the Boston Duck Boats.

That's my 11-year-old driving. (We were in the water.)

As predicted when I took my already overtired and overstimulated 1-year-old on an 80-minute tour (in which we were literally in the ocean half the time with no possibility of escape), the pacifier fell out and rolled across the floor under the seat next to us in the first few minutes.

Put yourself in my position: knowing that he'll never make it through the entire trip without a pacifier, do you A) retrieve the pacifier and wait 10 minutes until it doesn't seem as gross to give it back to him, or –

Who am I kidding? A. You choose A.

—3—

During the morning school bus rush, my 3-year-old called from the other room, "Moooooom, I really feel bad!"

"Why?" I rushed in, thinking immediately of stomach flu and looking for the closest object in the room capable of catching vomit.

"Because of Voldemort and Snape," she replied.

This child has obviously never read the Harry Potter books. But she's absorbed every fact about them that exists through her older siblings.

—4—

My sister-in-law Megan graduated from her master's program at Emerson College in Boston on Monday, and we all attended. My 1-year-old immensely enjoyed it and can now cross "sit through an hour and 45 minute graduation ceremony" off his bucket list.

Seriously, though, we're so proud of Megan.

—5—

To get to the graduation, we parked in a pretty shady establishment.

If you're not familiar with the parking situation in Boston, picture a major city built before cars were a thing, and then city planners later trying to jam spots in wherever they can.

There are a good number of bigger, respectable-looking garages, but hundreds of other little 40' by 40' slabs of cracked pavement tucked away in dilapidated alleyways, where you just pack the cars in as close as physically possible and give the key to the attendant so he can get it out for you afterward.

That's where we parked.

However, usually they give you some kind of receipt to prove that you're the owner of the car when you come to claim the key... at this place, they didn't. I just pointed at my van and said, "That's mine." I could have upgraded to a better one that I saw in the lot! Or I could go back tomorrow and pick one out!

I thought about putting a negative review on Yelp, but I didn't want to tell thieves where to go to get a free car.

—6—

I've been waiting to watch the movie Unbroken for a while. If you haven't heard of it, it's the true story of an Olympic runner who joined the air force and was taken prisoner by the Japanese in WWII.

It was a beautiful and well-done movie, but so graphic that it was hard to watch (just like the book was so graphic it was hard to read.)



But do you know what? The book was WAAAAY better. The movie should have been called Broken, since it ended just as he was liberated from the POW camp. At that point he was pretty broken. The book follows him throughout the rest of his life, when he pulled himself back together, found his reason for living, and learned to forgive (i.e: became unbroken.)

Have you ever watched a movie that you liked as much as the book it was based on?

—7—

Phillip and I are planning a trip to New York City in the very near future and we're really excited. Mostly because we can sleep in.

Our 6-day trip will be the longest we've ever been away from the kids together. We've been on some overnight trips, and a few years ago I went on a longer trip to Switzerland with my mom and brother, but never 5 nights with Phillip. Do you know how many uninterrupted nights of sleep that is? And how many mornings sleeping in?

Did I mention we'll get to sleep in?

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What It's Like When Kids Miss the School Bus... Again

I startle awake in my room. The clock says 7:17 AM. I hear the steady drip, drip of the faucet in my bathroom sink; there's a Pillow Pet soaking in there because someone woke up last night with a bloody nose.

Wait, it's Wednesday. And it's 7:17.

The school bus arrives in 10 minutes.

I lie frozen in my bed, listening for signs of life outside the door that tell me that my three oldest have somehow awoken on their own and are at this very moment putting their lunches in their backpacks and heading out to the bus stop.

No such luck.

Everyone is sound asleep, except for the 3-year-old who I can hear singing in the bathroom as I pass into their room.

My foggy brain can hardly handle the mental calculations: what time does school start? How long will it take us to drive there? What time do we need to leave? How many minutes is that again?

My older daughter rolls out of bed more confused than I am. "So... we need to leave at 6:40?"

"No, we need to be pulling out of the driveway at 7:45. Let's move!"

We condense the routine. They eat boxed cereal. I check my email. I hear the baby start to cry in his crib.

The killer is that my 7-year-old son is in a different school with a later start time, but not late enough that I can drive his sisters to school and be back in time for his bus. So if they miss their bus, he misses his bus, too.

But wait! There's a silver lining — Grandma is here. Still asleep as all reasonable people are on vacation at this hour, but she's here. So I don't need to take him with me. Theoretically, I could leave him here to get ready while I'm taking the girls to school.

This might just be crazy enough to work.

Like I'm imparting my last words before he heads off to war, I take my son firmly by the shoulders and look him straight in the eye.

"I want you to finish your morning routine," I say slowly, "and at 8:00 get your shoes on and put your lunch in your backpack. At 8:05 go out to the bus stop. Got it?"

He nods, but I eye his pajamas and bleary expression, and I have less than a 30% expectation that he will even remember my instructions after I go out the door.

"Grandma is downstairs if you need anything, okay?"

I retrieve the baby, who's sporting snowman pajamas and an extremely soggy diaper, pop the pacifier in his mouth, and head out to the car. The preschooler is delighted to be barefoot and wearing her nightgown in public, and is in the front seat pretending to drive.

I run in to retrieve my flip-flops, and of course I can only find one (the preschooler likes to wear them around the house for fun, so I'll probably find it in either the dollhouse or the toilet later). I mentally go through the scenarios in my head: I could go without shoes, but what if I crash or get stranded on the road and need to walk? I settle for slipping my bare feet into tennis shoes and grab my keys.

"She told me to shut up!" My 9-year-old accuses as soon as I show my face in the garage.

"Is this true?" I ask the preschooler.

"No," she solemnly swears. "I never did not."

I think I muttered a vague moralistic statement such as "In this family we don't say 'shut up,'" but I don't really remember. It's 7:48 and we were supposed to be driving out of the driveway three minutes ago.

It's no accident, by the way, that I haven't mentioned brushing my teeth or getting dressed. Today, I'll be the pajamaed mom in the drop-off line with a sloppy ponytail and dragon breath.

Glancing in the rearview mirror at the girls buckling up in the backseat, I offer a silent prayer of thanks that they're not yet old enough to be embarrassed of me.

After much speeding and clock-watching and toe-tapping and line-waiting, I pull up to our house at 8:04 and see my son — fully dressed and wearing a backpack — waiting at the bus stop on the corner.

He did it!

I sprint into the kitchen to see if his lunch is still in the refrigerator.

He remembered it!

I wave to him at the bus stop, hoping that it communicates how proud I am of him and how much I really do love him and hope he has a great day today.

Exhaling deeply, I retrieve the baby and 3-year-old from the car and sit them down to breakfast. We did it. We made it! As I slice bananas on the baby's tray, the phone rings.

"Mom?" my daughter's voice on the other end says, "I forgot it's Wednesday. Can you bring me my flute?"

Obviously not today.

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50 Reasons Why My Kids Aren't in Bed Right Now

Eight o'clock, bedtime for our four oldest children.

We give hugs, sing songs, and read stories. We close the door, and after calming down the toddler because we forgot to leave it open a crack, quietly tiptoe downstairs.

Three, two, one... and the first little person wanders out of their room with a plaintive "Mooooom..."

Over the next 45 minutes, our house will become the prairie dog habitat at the zoo as all 4 kids take turns popping their heads out of their bedroom doors with various excuses why they can't sleep. Such as:

1. I have a hangnail.
2. There's a bump on my tongue.
3. I'm scared of the snow monster in Frozen.
4. I can't find my other slipper.
5. The blanket is tangled up.
6. I need lotion on my hands.
7. I need a drink.
8. I forgot to brush my teeth.
9. I just remembered that my shoebox diorama of an ocean habitat is due tomorrow.
10. I'm hot.
11. I'm cold.
12. I need another drink.
13. I'm suddenly very sad about my pet hamster that died 9 months ago.
14. What are we having for breakfast in the morning?
15. My foot hurts.
16. My stomach hurts.
17. Nothing hurts, I just don't feel good in general.
18. I need a different blanket.
19. I'm tired.
20. My lips are chapped.
21. My pillow smells.
22. My pillow is too lumpy.
23. Now my pillow is lost.
24. I need to go potty.
25. And get another drink.
26. I fell out of bed and hurt my elbow.
27. What does "intercourse" mean?
28. It's dark in here.
29. My sister is singing.
30. Now she's humming.
31. What will the weather be like tomorrow?
32. I don't like these pajamas.
33. I heard a car honk its horn outside.
34. There's a mosquito in here!
35. I learned a funny joke at school.
36. What happens after you die?
37. I have the hiccups.
38. The mosquito's back.
39. I didn't get to say goodnight to you.
40. I need to go potty again. Number two this time!
41. I forgot to get a drink when I went potty.
42. I can hear you watching TV down there.
43. What time is it?
44. How many days until my birthday?
45. When do you guys go to bed? Why do you get to stay up later than me?
46. I want to sleep on the floor.
47. My side hurts when I breathe.
48. Promise you won't let anyone touch my Lego city while I'm at school tomorrow.
49. I have a wiggly tooth.
50. I really, really need a drink!

Someday science will uncover the reason why all children realize that they're dying of thirst the moment they lie down in bed, but not tonight.

Tonight we'll just ride out the requests for a third, fourth, and fifth drink of water, and hope that at some point, they give up and go to sleep. They'll need some quiet time to generate excuses for tomorrow, won't they?

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7 Quick Takes about the Secret Sauce, Unusual Sleeping Arrangements, and How You Know When Someone Really Loves Tuna Fish

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! That's 7 quick thoughts for the last 7 days.

—1—

I hear horror stories about the dreaded "Mother's Day breakfast in bed," where moms are forced to smile and choke down soggy Froot Loops or lumpy pancakes missing the salt while their children stare at them.

Luckily, I don't have to worry about that. Phillip's a food snob, remember? I breakfast like the Queen of England on Mother's Day.

I was so focused on getting it all in my face I didn't take a picture, but this year Phillip whipped up the most delicious breakfast sandwich I've ever had: scrambled eggs with avocado and tomato slices on a toasted English muffin, topped with a special sauce of which he won't reveal the ingredients. He says he invented the recipe and is keeping it a secret "so I still need him around."

I'm slightly concerned about what's going to happen to my sandwiches in the event that he dies first. I think the recipe needs to go in his will, just in case.

—2—

After breakfast, the next best thing about Mother's Day is seeing the kids' handmade cards. There were some very creative ones this year, but this one seemed to really resonate with me:

From our 11-year-old, who probably never wants children of her own.

This kid gets it. She really gets it.

—3—

Lately our preschooler has been waking up two or three times a night for various ridiculous reasons (hence the card) and waking up the sisters who share her room.

With no other bedrooms and our older girls looking like extras from the set of Thriller when they get up for school in the morning, we had no other choice but to find an alternate sleeping arrangement for the preschooler until she starts sleeping through the night again.

Taken right after reading her favorite bedtime story, Goodnight Toilet. I mean, Goodnight Moon.

Yes, we put her on a mattress in the master bathroom.

Actually, she likes it, which creates a whole new problem because now she doesn't want to move out. I worry that she and her dolly are going to be sleeping in our bathroom until she goes to college.

—4—

How do you handle watching movies too scary for your younger children when you've got older kids?

Movie night has always just been Family Time in our house, but now that we're getting older children, sometimes that means a 3-year-old is watching The Hobbit.

We've tried just having me leave the room with the little kids during the scary parts, which works okay but it means that I miss all the good parts.

Last time, we put the younger kids to bed, then swore the older ones to secrecy and to silence if we put on a movie. Also okay, but Phillip still talks about the first time he wandered downstairs in the night as a child to find his parents and older siblings sitting around the TV with ice cream without him. He's 34. This method works, but it obviously leaves lasting emotional scars.

—5—

This week I finished packing away the kids' winter boots for another year, a new record for me because we still have several weeks before June hits! (I know, I'm impressed with me, too.)

I also decided that all their previously outgrown boots (stored in the basement until they can be handed down to the next kid) needed to be reorganized. I pulled a pink pair out of the box, threw it across the room to where I was piling up the boots, and a SHOWER of little seeds went flying everywhere.

Mice.

Mice have been stealing our birdseed and hoarding it inside my kids' outgrown boots.

Phillip thinks it's "cute" that they're storing seeds for winter in such a funny way. I'm this close to vomiting and think we should burn the house down immediately.

We'll probably compromise and set up some mouse traps.

—6—

On my way to the library, I drove behind this car:

Really likes tuna.

There are only a few causes I feel passionate enough about to permanently emblazon upon my vehicle, so I can only guess how deep this guy's love for a good tuna fish sandwich must go.

—7—

While I was sweeping up the mid-sized mountain of food on the floor after dinner last night, my 3-year-old came over with her plastic toy cell phone and started pressing the button that makes camera noises.

I asked what she was doing and she answered, "Taking pictures of the mess for my blog" and continued snapping away.

I fear for how this blog might be molding her young brain.


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Why I'm Not a Fashion Blogger

When you're a famous blogger like I am, sometimes you receive solicitations from different companies wanting you to lend your celebrity voice to their product.

Earlier this week I got an email from Sam at Invaluable.com, which bills itself as "the world's premiere online auction marketplace for fine and decorative items, including jewelry."

Sam writes, "I'm emailing you because after checking out name of blog, I thought you would be perfect for a project we're running!"

(Okay, so he forgot that this form letter needed a little more personalization and left 'name of blog' in the email, but whatever, I'm still listening.)

He concludes, "We are looking for bloggers, like you, to share the story behind their most prized jewelry. ...Jewelry is timeless, sentimental, and unique to every individual, and is something that should be celebrated! Let me know if you're interested."

Well.

Naturally, I was flattered, but I can't say I was particularly surprised.

I mean, you only need to spend a few minutes on Name of Blog (I mean, Unremarkable Files) before you see that I am All. About. The Bling. I mean, am I ever not talking about jewelry on this blog?

I have a serious jewelry addiction. Phillip has threatened to leave me if I being home one more expensive bracelet, but I can't help myself. I'm just a girl who loves to look pretty. I really take pride in my accessories, you know?

Take, for instance, the luxury watch I'm wearing right now:

This stunning piece is a 100% Chinese-made silicon rubber sports watch, which set me back $1.99 on Amazon. I got it with free shipping and it arrived a month later in a bubble mailer marked "gift" in the customs area, so I'm pretty sure there was something illegal going on.

Nevertheless, it's a sturdy little watch and worth every penny. Even if it does fall behind a few minutes more every day. (P.S: The watch is still available on Amazon, although the price has now increased to $3.30. Just tell them Jenny sent you.)

And of course for a lover of fine jewelry like myself, there's a story behind every other piece I own, too.

I chose to stare pensively off into the distance because I kept ending up looking deranged when I tried a smiling selfie.

I love the look of those intricate gold leaf earrings.

Do you ever pass the jewelry rack at drugstores and wonder who buys those things? That would be me. In fact, these were part of a 3/$10 deal at Rite Aid so I also brought home this lovely necklace.

Can't remember what the third piece was, but I'm sure it was equally gorgeous.

What Sam at Invaluable.com must have seen right away was that accessorizing with beautiful jewelry is just part of who I am, and you can't put a price tag on that. Jewelry is really important to me, and I'm prepared to shell out big bucks for quality:

Why yes, I do believe $4.98 sounds about right for three pairs of earrings.

There's this cute, chunky little number that makes me feel oh-so-fashionable and I got it for free at a yard sale:

These genuine cubic zirconias from Kmart are real show-stoppers wherever I go:

Wowza!

And I think somewhere along the line, these used to be a silver color:

Embrace the tarnish. This is what life looks like now.

(However, they're still my favorites and I wear them regularly, quite happily pretending it looks like there are chic silver loops dangling from my earlobes instead of rusty fishing lures.)

But I think my favorite piece of all was handcrafted for me personally by my second child when she was in kindergarten.

Hooked on Phonics worked for me!

After looking at what I might tell Sam at Invaluable.com about my jewelry collection, maybe he doesn't want to hear from me, after all.

The problem is that I'm just too practical to own much jewelry, anyway. What's the point? Both you and I know that any jewelry I do attempt to wear is immediately going to be removed, played with, and probably broken by one of my kids.

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When You Feel Like a Miserable Failure of a Human Being (Not That I Would Know...)

Lately I've been thinking about discouragement. Not the kind where you feel like you can't keep your house clean (psssht... like that matters.) The big stuff, like being a good mom and a good person.

Everyone struggles with this; at least I hope they do, because I do, sometimes.

On Sunday as I was thinking about discouragement and what we do about it, I went to church and heard one of the New Testament parables in a whole new way.

Jesus tells a story in Matthew 18 about a forgiven debt. For the long-form story from the Bible click here, or if you have the attention span of a gnat these days (don't worry, it's not your fault and I'm not judging you) here it is in bullet points:

• Man #1 owes Man #2 a huge sum of money.
• Man #1 can't pay and begs for mercy. Man #2 forgives the debt. Yipee!
• Man #1 finds his old college buddy who owes him a little bit of money, roughs him up, and demands the money right now. When it doesn't happen, he throws his friend in prison until he can pay.
• Word gets back to Man #2. He is not amused. He chews out Man #1 and "unforgives" his original debt, because he wouldn't show mercy to his friend like he'd been shown.
• Moral of the story:  "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every on his brother their trespasses" (Jesus' words, not mine.)

My first thought on hearing this parable, past or present, is "How dumb is this guy?"

Man #1's debt had just been erased. He didn't have to pay a thing, but he goes to so much trouble to start paying back the loan. That's like calling Verizon to ask for a discount on my FIOS, then getting it, but continuing to pay the original price every month.

Except dumber. It's like if they said "Okay, you can just have your Internet for free" and I kept sending in checks. (Side note: if anyone knows of a deal like that, please email me.)

I mean, why did he feel compelled to keep paying after the debt was forgiven? 

Maybe he was trying to show that he appreciated the forgiveness, and wanted to pay back a little of the old debt to say thanks or to show that he'd tried.

He could have been embarrassed by the fact that he'd gotten so far into debt and wanted to prove he could make a dent in the amount he'd owed.

It could have been because he didn't really believe it. Maybe he thought the debt was so big that it couldn't be forgiven so easily.

Whatever the reason, I sort of want to reach into the pages and shake the guy: "Hello! Your debt was forgiven. What are you doing?"

It's like he didn't understand at all that his debt had been totally wiped out.

And then I get it: that was the point of the whole story. The man didn't get it. He didn't wholly trust in the forgiveness offered by his creditor, so he ended up losing it.

When I'm beating myself up over yelling at the kids (again) or skipping scripture study and prayer (again) or having an unkind thought (again,) I'm not much different than Man #1 in our story beating up his friend.

God knew that I was going to epically fail some days, and that I wasn't always going to do my best, and generally get myself into an enormous amount of debt (figuratively speaking.) Ain't no way I can make it up to Him.

But the great part is, I don't have to.

Instead of dwelling on how I'm not doing my best, all I need to do is ask for the forgiveness Christ has already given me, and say thank you.

And then instead of feeling discouraged and disappointed in myself, I can start over. I can ask for help to do better. No need to waste time on old debts that were already incurred and forgiven a long time ago.

Now, if only that meant I didn't need to clean up messes the kids make around the house.

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7 Quick Takes about Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, Carrion at the Zoo, and Mutant Ponies That Are Supposedly Fun to Play With

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! That means 7 quick thoughts for the last 7 days.

—1—

For having 5 kids of my own, I sure am the world's worst babysitter. When my friend Becky and her husband scored tickets to see the Red Sox play the Yankees, I said I'd be happy to watch her daughters and put them to bed while they went to the game.

Unfortunately, the 2-year-old thought having anyone except her mom put her to bed was a terrible idea. She went to sleep, but woke up at 11:30. When she realized that the only adult around was still not her mom, she went ballistic. And woke up her sister who started crying, too.

So Becky came home at midnight to find both girls fully awake and hysterical. I don't think I could've felt guiltier if she'd walked in to find us in the living room doing jello shots and playing Grand Theft Auto.

I hope we can still be friends, or at least that there's no restraining order.

—2—

Phillip wanted our preschooler to take a nap on Sunday, but getting her to lie down in bed is like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall, if Jell-o also whined the whole time.

So he sat her on his lap and showed her a 5-minute video he found on YouTube called "RELAX! THIS WILL PUT YOU TO SLEEP!"

Zzzzzzzzz...

And that, friends, is what we call truth in advertising.

—3—

We took the kids to the zoo on Tuesday and I noticed some, um, unusual sculpture. Do you see it?

No?

Look again:

Why yes, that is the bloody corpse of an antelope.
It's all the rage in tree-decorating now!

I think the statue was meant to make you feel like you're right there in the middle of the African plain, where a leopard has just dragged its freshly-killed prey into a tree.

My first thought was: Wow, that's pretty weird.

My second thought: Wait, am I sure that's a statue? 

Third thought: It couldn't be real; that fence doesn't look very leopard-proof. 

Fourth thought: Let's get out of here before somebody gets eaten. Direct me to the tortoise exhibit!

—4—

My dad showed Phillip, who's sort of an adrenaline junkie, this crazy mountain biking video he found on Facebook:


Here was the running commentary as we watched it:

6-year-old at 2:06 - "Haha, he's jumping with his bike!"
Me at 2:51 - "That doesn't even look fun. Not even a little bit."
9-year-old at 3:45 - "Wait, what?! Somebody really did this?"
Phillip at 4:57 - "This is what I should be doing with my life..."
My dad at 6:21 - "Now he's gotta go in the river and clean out his shorts."

—5—

As it does roughly every 6 months, our printer died. Apparently buying the absolute cheapest printer in existence isn't a recipe for longevity. But guess what? We also bought an extended 3-year warranty for $20, which has gotten us 4 new printers and counting.

Our semiannual printer delivery was today. They even sent us ink, meaning that they are pretty much paying us at this point.

—6—

What is up with My Little Pony Equestria dolls? I don't get it. What are they? Genetically modified humans? Or ponies? Or aliens?

My girls got this in their Happy Meal and none of us knew what to make of it.

What has animal ears, a womanly figure, wings, pink hair, yellow skin, and go-go boots?
No idea. But you will play with it and you will like it!

I am so confused. The label says "My Little Pony," but it's not any little pony that I grew up with.

—7—

A weekend movie recommendation for you, just in time for date night. Even though we'd never heard of it and the trailer made it look like a snooze-fest, we watched Midnight in Paris and it might be one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time. I think you'll enjoy it even if you're not a literary nerd, but it helps.

Since I'm such a great film critic I know you'll all just jump on Netflix and rent it right now. Honestly, I hope you do. Let me know in the comments if you liked it!

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