7 Quick Takes about Staying Positive, Henna Tattoos, and Adventures with Wildlife

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My friend's adult daughter is trying a new life approach to become a more positive person: repeating the mantra "Everything always works out for me!"

Fast-forward to later in the week, as I drove to my church building in the pouring rain at 11 PM on Saturday night. I was responsible for setting up something in the lobby before church on Sunday (and by now, I know myself well enough not to believe my empty promises that "I'll just get up early and do it in the morning.")

The rain was coming down hard, but as I pulled up to the church it suddenly stopped raining and it made me remember my friend's daughter's mantra. I smiled, opened the sliding door of the van to retrieve everything I needed to bring inside, and said out loud to myself "Everything always works out for me!" And then a big gust of wind blew my papers out the door and into a puddle.

So there's that.

—2—

In 2017, a mosque just a few towns over from us had an open mosque day and I completely loved the experience. So when I happened to see a flyer for this year, I was all over it.

My 11-year-old was particularly excited because last time, she wasn't old enough to go, but she remembered how her older sisters had come home with henna and she could not wait to finally be part of the club.

A dream fulfilled.

Each of these only took less than 10 minutes.

Just like last time at the open house, I was so impressed with the Muslim teenagers who presented their beliefs on handmade posterboards. They were articulate and sincere, and in general seemed like really down-to-earth kids who lived life with direction and purpose. Whenever the subject of Ramadan came up, I asked the kids if they thought it was hard to fast, and their answers were all surprisingly mature.

This time, the open house did not include seeing the call to prayer, which was disappointing since that was my favorite part last time, but then again, I get it. It must take something away from your religious worship when there are a bunch of randos at the back of the room eating popcorn like they're watching a movie.

—3—

My 15-year-old has been going through a major growth spurt lately. Just the other day I looked at him and said, "Wait a minute. Are you taller than me?"

We're exactly the same height. For now.

The 7-year-old took it upon himself to tape together a bunch of papers and draw this for his brother, which probably sums up how we all feel:

"Your realy realy realy realy realy realy tall."

—4—

At my 7-year-old's school, you can sign up to come in and read a picture book to the class. They call you "the mystery reader" because ahead of time you send in clues about your identity and the kids try to guess who's coming in.

I was already the mystery reader in October, but since there was an empty slot this week and my 19-year-old is home from college, I asked if she'd like to do it.

She went in and read Click, Clack, Moo and What! Cried Granny (my personal favorite from when she was little.) Her brother had no idea it was her (my guess is that he didn't really listen to the clues because I'd already been the mystery reader so he assumed it wouldn't be anyone he knows.) 

She reports that the other kids were also surprised to see her, since the mystery readers are always somebody's parents or occasionally grandparents. "You're an adult?" they kept asking her.

—5—

It was my birthday on Monday! I'm 41 now. 

Mostly it was just like any other crazy weekday, full of early-morning chaos as everyone got off to school and afternoon chaos as everyone needed rides to their 147 extra-curricular activities. 

But after the last school bus came and went, my homeschooled teenager told me to take a nap and she made me breakfast when I got up, so it was actually pretty nice.

—6—

My second daughter passed her road test, meaning that we have a total of 4 licensed drivers in the house now! Unfortunately we only have two cars, so it still requires a lot of juggling. But less than before. 

And right now, the newly-minted driver is super-eager to do any minor errands I might need, which I should for sure take advantage of before the novelty wears off.

—7—

Yesterday Phillip was playing basketball in the driveway with one of the boys when they noticed a weird noise. A little fledging bird was in the grass, and he was not happy about it. He was positively shrieking, mouth wide open for food, and violently shuddering (I looked it up, and yes, birds shiver to warm up just like people do.) 

The Internet suggested to repeat to yourself "Don't anthropomorphize, don't anthropomorphize" and just leave it alone. But by the time the sun started to go down he was still shivering out there and it seemed like he was likely going to freeze (or starve) overnight.

So we put him in a bucket with some bedding and he spent the night in our kitchen, being fed a recipe Phillip found online with a repurposed medicine syringe. After a little while he stopped shivering and seemed generally content. 

In the morning when the temperatures went back up, we put him near where we'd found him. An hour later, I went out to check on him out of curiosity and he was gone. 

So either he was off safely learning how to fly and be a bird, or he made a tasty snack for another one of God's creatures, either of which is something that is supposed to happen in the animal kingdom and makes me feel better than thinking he froze or starved. Good luck, little guy.

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7 Quick Takes about Strange Happenings in the Grocery Store, Disappointing My Pilgrim Ancestors, and Things I'd Rather Be Doing Than Sitting in a Traffic Jam

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My 19-year-old has spent a week recovering from her first year at college and is back to her grocery store job. But with a twist: she's getting trained as a bookkeeper and getting a raise! 

When she told me the news, obviously I started singing The Jefferson's theme song but it was totally lost on her. I feel sorry for her generation.

—2—

Speaking of my daughter's job, she came home from work one day and said, "Well, I got a complaint at the customer service desk I've never gotten before."

Apparently there were two kids running on top of the stand-up freezers in the frozen foods aisle.

After someone complained about it, she went to check it out and one kid about 9 or 10 years old was still up there, having crawled up an endcap display of paper towels stacked beside the freezers.

"Where were the parents?" A friend asked when I related this story to her the next day.

I'd asked my daughter that, too, and she said that the dad was right there. He just wasn't paying attention, I guess.

"Wow," my friend said. "That's, like, something that should have been on even a dad's radar."

—3—

The hunt for rocks for my mailbox landscaping project continues. My kids were mortified when I saw a house with a big pile of rocks out by the road and I stopped to knock on the door to ask if they were getting rid of it. 

It turns out that they weren't, they were about to use them to build a rock wall.

"Hey, that's what I'm going to do, too!" I said. "I just can't make myself pay for rocks!"

The homeowner nodded sympathetically. "What would the Pilgrims think if they were alive today, seeing us pay for things like rocks?"

We laughed about it, and a few days later I found someone at church who was taking down a rock wall on her property (I told you they were everywhere in New England) and said I was welcome to come take whatever I wanted.

I did the pointing, Phillip did the lifting.

—4—

Having secured rocks to make sort of a low retaining wall around the mailbox, next I needed a good quantity of fill dirt. 

Which I payed for, much to the Pilgrims' dismay.

This is what 7 tons of sand/dirt looks like.

When the kids got home from school the day of the delivery, they wanted to know (1) if they could jump in the pile and (2) how much it weighed. 

I told them (1) no, and (2) they had to guess.

I think they worked their way up from 100 pounds, and when they finally guessed the correct weight my 11-year-old immediately yelled, "Can I help shovel it?"

Because that is a totally normal reaction upon hearing that there's 14,000-lb pile of dirt in your front lawn.

—5—

My 15-year-old has this friend James who always gives him the strangest gag gifts. For his last birthday, James gave him a 2-foot-long retractable fork so he can steal other people's food at mealtime.

Another time (no particular occasion) James gave him a box of Tic-Tacs, but it was wadded up in a humongous ball of plastic grocery bags and packing tape that took 20 minutes to unwrap.

So when the doorbell rang and we opened it to see this sitting on the front steps, we knew right away who it was from:

This is not being held by one of the little kids to make the jar look bigger. My full-size 17-year-old is holding it.

That day we had grilled cheese pickle sandwiches for lunch, and by the contents of the jar I can tell there are going to be more Google searches for pickle recipes in the near future.

—6—

Since the weather has gotten nice, my three youngest kids (ages 7, 9, and 11) have been spending more time outside. Lately they've been climbing two trees in our front yard and inventing lots of games that involve going as high as you can.

Recently I went outside and my 11-year-old called to me "Look, Mom! I brought books up here!" She'd somehow hauled up a bag of books and hung it on a branch, and was reposing on a limb 15 feet in the air flipping through one of them.

That totally would have made it into the posts I wrote about 8 years ago about her older siblings ("9 Telltale Signs Your Kids Read Too Much" and "9 More Signs Your Kids Read Way Too Much"). Now all she needs up there is a mini-fridge and she'll be set for an entire afternoon.

—7—

My 17-year-old is done with her student orchestra for the school year, and not a minute too soon. I love attending the concerts, but driving into the city for rehearsal every week is slowly sucking the life out of me. The traffic has been so bad, I just can't do it anymore.

On Tuesday she had a dress rehearsal for her final concert, and not only did the terrible traffic make her late for rehearsal, it was also terrible in the other direction and it was obvious that I was going to miss something I had been looking forward to that evening.

So I was in a pretty foul mood on my way home, until I saw the bumper sticker of the car stuck in front of me:

It genuinely did make my day a little better.

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7 Quick Takes about Why I'm Not an Action Movie Buff, Refusing to Pay for Rocks, and the Difference Between Spenders and Savers

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Even though action movies are the last genre of movies I'd ever want to watch, my 14-year-old recently saw the movie Tenet and insisted we all had to see it. So I reserved it from the library to watch with him and the other teenagers in the family.

I ended up falling asleep shortly after the opening scene. It's not my fault; I blame Christopher Nolan. After about 10 consecutive seconds of explosions/gunshots/glass breaking, my brain just get bored and checks out. (I spent most of Inception in a coma, only to be briefly awakened by the foghorn noises.)

My kids, however, love action movies, superhero movies, and the like. They're highly disappointed in me and perhaps a little offended that their entertainment makes me lose consciousness.

—2—

Later that week, I mentioned to someone how Phillip and I once watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with our children and they ruined it by poking holes in the logic (Take #3 here.)

My 17-year-old heard that and jumped in saying, "That's how I feel when we watch action movies with you!"

I was shocked. I mean, they all know what I think about action movies, but I keep my mouth shut during their movies so I don't squash their obvious enjoyment. "What do you mean? I don't say anything!"

"Yes, but I can feel feel your lack of suspension of disbelief," she explained. "It emanates from you like a fart cloud."

Okay, I definitely offended her by falling asleep during the last one.

—3—

Right now I've got an inside project and an outside project for myself, which is nice because I can pick which one I'm going to work on based on the weather and how much I want to be outside.

My inside project is priming and painting the basement. I just finished the second coat of primer on the walls, and the next step is painting the ceiling. Then choosing a paint color for the walls and doing a few coats of paint. Then brushing 3 coats of polyurethane on the stair treads. Then painting the doors and molding. Basically I'll be painting until I get tendinitis.

My outside project is landscaping around the mailbox. Here's a before picture, which isn't really even a before picture because there used to be a super-ugly metal pole next to it to keep cars from running into it:

For the 13 years we've lived here, I wasn't aware of anyone actually running into that eyesore of a pole, so this fall we removed it. The mailbox has since been knocked over twice by cars sliding off the road when it's icy.

So my new plan is to landscape the area by getting fill dirt and making kind of a bank with a low retaining wall where the pole used to be. I hope it will serve the same function as the pole, but look a lot nicer.

—4—

I've been sourcing biggish landscaping rocks this week to make my retaining wall. I get so close to buying some, and then I just can't. I am unable to buy rocks, sheerly on principle that they are rocks, and we live in New England.

The ground here is so rocky, people are drowning in them here. It's so normal to see a ton of big rocks and boulders in yards around here, sometimes in a rock wall, sometimes incorporated into the landscaping, sometimes arranged artfully by the side of the road. Sometimes they're randomly pushed to the edge of the property when a house is built and just stay there forever.  How can I justify buying rocks when I drive past a million of them every day?

My 19-year-old jokes that I should just take one from every yard, and no one will ever notice but I'll still end up with enough rocks to build my retaining wall.

—5—

My 11-year-old is becoming a shopaholic, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've always been a saver and so are my older children. When they earn money, they're required to save 60% of it and can spend the other 40% on whatever they want, and more often than not they're like, "I don't know what to do with this extra money so I'll just put it in my college savings, I guess."

On the other hand, my 11-year-old has an "I want" list a mile long and I have to regularly deny her loan applications because in this house, she's got to make the money before she spends it. I don't quite know what normal kid behavior is, but I suspect it falls somewhere between those two extremes.

We're making progress, though. She doesn't ask to borrow money very much anymore, and instead begs me to give her allowance chores so she can earn it. And whenever we pass a "Help Wanted" sign, she moans, "I want a JOB!!"

—6—

The other day, I'd practically filled my cart at the grocery store when an announcement came over the loudspeaker: the computers were down, and they were only accepting cash at the register.

A collective grumble went through the store. Not many people carry cash anymore, and they weren't even accepting checks (not that anybody really writes checks anymore, either.) Lots of people had to leave without their groceries altogether.

But luckily, I had plenty of bills in my wallet, because my 11-year-old had recently paid me back in cash for a bunch of stuff she bought on Amazon.

—7—

We live on a moderately busy through street, where there's always a problem with roadside litter. So our family went out and did a little spring cleanup.

It looks a lot better now, and I also got to explain to my younger kids what the following were after they read discarded packaging and asked what it meant:

• Budweiser
• Marlboro
• vodka
• marijuana (legal in our state)
• lottery tickets

We also found not one, not two, but three empty cans of Reddi-wip in the ditch, which I didn't have an explanation for.

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7 Quick Takes about Headphone Troubles, Wearing Your Seat Belt, and Why My Bank Thinks I Wait Tables

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My daughter's violin recital went amazingly. It was one of those wonderful events that I found myself thinking about over the next few days and just smiling at how it went.

The recital dress and hair.

And it wasn't just me who thought so. After my daughter finished her first piece, the 6-year-old leaned over to and whispered "That was impressive." If you can captivate a 1st grader with classical music for 15 minutes, you must be good. 

Of course, my daughter isn't a miracle worker and by intermission he'd slipped out the door and spent the second half of the recital playing in the gym across the hall.

—2—

My 18-year-old is home from college for the summer! Next week she's going back to work at her job from high school, but this week she's been decompressing from a grueling freshman year.

With all her free time at home, I had grand plans to have her help me finish priming and painting the basement walls and ceiling this week, but I forgot that she's on college time. She'd be happy to help, if only our schedules weren't the exact opposite of each other.

I can work on large projects in the mornings while the kids are at school, but that's when she's sleeping. And her most productive hours are 9PM to whatever unholy hour of the morning she chooses, when I'm also sound asleep. 

Maybe we can set up some kind of a shift work system to finish the basement, and work together that way.

—3—

I wanted to listen to some calming music to unwind before bed, so I borrowed my 17-year-old's bluetooth headphones. Except first my phone wouldn't connect to them, and then they turned off on their own and I couldn't find the power button. So I asked my daughter for help.

"You just have to turn them on," she said.

By now, I was beyond frustrated because I was closer to screaming and punching a hole in the wall than I was to comfortably drifting off to sleep. "Well, how do I turn them on?!"

"I don't know," she said, clearly enjoying having the upper hand. "How do I dial a rotary phone?"

Okay, I get it. I'll stop watching videos like this one and laughing hysterically in her presence.

She helped me with the headphones but they were still not connecting to my phone, so she went to go get a different pair for me. Re-entering the bedroom, she tossed them on the bed and said, "Here you go, Boomer."

—4—

I've noticed that after the kids use something from our kitchen junk drawer, instead of replacing it in the correct drawer divider they just slingshot it from across the room in the general direction of the drawer. At least that's what it looks like to me.

So this sounds like the most uptight thing ever, but I borrowed a labelmaker from our library and labeled the compartments in the junk drawer.

I got the idea from The Minimal Mom, who said in a video once that her son asked if he could label the junk drawer one day and she said sure just to keep him busy, but then it stayed organized after that because everyone started putting things away in the right place.

We'll see if this works.

—5—

I was in the lobby of our local auto school, waiting for one of my children to get back from taking the road test to get their driver's license. 

Another mom waved her son out the door for his test and then turned around and said to us "He just gets so nervous. But I told him he'll be fine as long as he remembers the basics: use your blinker, wear your seatbelt—"

"The right way," added the receptionist.

"Excuse me?" I asked. "How do you wear your seatbelt the wrong way?"

Completely serious, the receptionist told me that some kids will get in the car for their road test and put the shoulder strap under their arm or behind their back, and fail immediately before they've even turned the key in the ignition. I could hardly believe that some parents were really letting their kids drive around like that, but she swore she'd seen in multiple times.

My kid ended up failing their test that day, but I suppose it made us both feel a little better to know that at least they made it out of the parking lot first!

—6—

Phillip and I have been wanting to switch banks forever, and the first step was to go open new checking and savings accounts. We made an appointment with the bank clerk and once we were in her office, she started asking us all the standard questions: name, address, and so on.

When she asked what my occupation was, I said "Homemaker."

She looked up from her computer and asked "And what were you before that?"

I stuttered that my last job was a part-time job 20 years ago.

"Okay. What was it?"

I said "waitress," she wrote it down, and then we moved on with the questions. But I kept thinking about it for the rest of the day.

If I could go back in time and hadn't been caught off-guard, I would have asked her why 'homemaker' wasn't on the list of occupations. It makes no sense. First of all, that is my occupation. I realize that I don't receive a paycheck, but how is the name of the company who issued my paychecks in 2001 relevant to my current financial profile?

So anyway, I guess I'm a waitress now. My kids are going to have to start tipping better.

—7—

The change of seasons means that all my kids need new clothes, so I took a few of them out to do some shopping. 

It was a pretty successful trip, meaning that we found close to half of what they needed, and I saw a few things that just made me laugh:

The only reason my son didn't get this is that they didn't have it in his size.

We weren't looking for a shirt covered in dabbing ghosts, but I hope someone out there is.

I'm only a few more shopping trips and a big Amazon order away from having all the kids appropriately clothed for spring and summer.

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