7 Quick Takes about Online Shopping Fails, Christmas Scavenger Hunts, and Unusual Laundry Tips

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

—1—

I woke up on the morning of Christmas Eve wondering, where are the stocking stuffers I ordered from Amazon several days ago? That's when I checked my cart, and realized they were still sitting in it. Apparently I'd forgotten to click the final button.

I flew out of bed and charged into the living room, muttering at my phone. The 8-year-old looked up from reading on the couch and asked what happened.

"I forgot to order some stuff for Christmas and now it won't be here in time," I told him.

Clearly remembering a talk at church about how one family's particular penniless, giftless Christmas turned out to be a wonderful time being together and honoring Jesus, he smiled and replied, "It's going to be the best Christmas ever, then." 

In the end, of course, he was right. The kids didn't die from getting IOUs in their stockings, and actually it drew out the fun to get little trinkets in the mail through the 30^th. My 13-year-old won't remember that her hair clips arrived late, but she did randomly share with me that she loves how we read Luke 2 together before going downstairs to check out the goodies Santa brought us, so I know that Christmas doesn't depend on Amazon Prime shipping.

But seriously, next time remind me to double-check the online shopping cart.

—2—

I was feeling overwhelmed at the idea of making our usual Christmas cookie plates to deliver to friends and neighbors, but good thing the kids are older now because they came to the rescue.

Gingerbread, jam strips, Russian teacakes, and sugar cookies ready to assemble onto mixed plates and deliver.

It's a beautiful thing when you can walk in the kitchen to steal a bite of cookie dough that you had no part in making and just walk right back out again. You don't think it will ever happen when your kids are little, but it will.

—3—

On Christmas day, we opened some gifts from the grandparents and then revealed our experience gifts for the kids. Phillip used AI to design a scavenger hunt through the woods for code words that would allow AI to tell them what their experience gift was. 

It took a fair bit of tinkering beforehand to make sure the AI didn't go rogue and start making stuff up, as it tends to do without explicit instructions to stick to the script.

Two of the code words.

Gathered around the phone to get their next set of coordinates.

For our experience gifts this year, we're making candles at a local art store, doing a pottery wheel workshop, watching a show at the planetarium, going indoor rock climbing, having a Marvel movie marathon, and going to a Brazilian steakhouse with an all-you-can-eat-option. I'll let you guess which one is for the 16-year-old boy.

—4—

The space-loving 10-year-old is delighted with a new computer game called Universe Sandbox that he got from his grandparents, and started playing it right away on Christmas morning. It lets you create and alter universes, add planets and asteroids, change their orbits, give planets a bunch of extra moons, and basically play around however you want to see what happens. 

"How's the game?" I called from the living room after he'd been playing on it for a little while. "What are you doing?"

"Crashing Kepler-10b into Earth," he responded sweetly.

—5—

We watched a cute new Christmas movie called 8-Bit Christmas. It was a loose retelling of A Christmas Story, but set in a different decade and way better. I won't spoil it for you, but if you ever loved a Nintendo when you were younger, you'll probably like it.

An unexpected bonus was that the ending really made the kids excited to build a treehouse with their dad. Once upon a time, we thought about building a platform in the trees as an extension of the kids' playset in the backyard, but the idea never got enough momentum to go anywhere. 

I think if the kids are into it, though, it can happen this spring. (Is it too much to hope that it might also motivate us to finish the basement so we can move on to a treehouse?)

—6—

One of my favorite new Christmas gifts is my Supercloth. It's a rinse-and-reuse microfiber cloth that apparently cleans with just water. 

My in-laws videocalled and could see me in the background trying it out on the dining room windows. "Are you making the maid work on Christmas??" they were teasing. (For reference, we don't have a maid on Christmas or on the other 364 days of the year, unless you count me.)

The only thing that gives me pause about the Supercloth is this oddly specific care instruction.

So far my favorite use is for washing windows. I also used it to clean the stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and it took ⅓ the time it usually does to wipe them down with Turtle Wax and bring back the shine. Do you guys have one of these? What do you use it for?

—7—

Every Christmastime, the kids make "gingerbread" houses. We started out with the premade kits but as they got older we started getting boxes of graham crackers and clearing out the candy section of the grocery store instead.

They create (1) the hugest mess that anyone has ever seen and (2) some really cool houses, which I'll post pictures of next week. For now, here's a picture of the table when they were done. Please pray for us.

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7 Quick Takes about Fixing the Garage Door Opener, Holiday Recitals, and Post-Shower Injuries

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

—1—

You know how I talked about closing all the open loops in the house every morning?

Well, forget it. There are 5 days until Christmas. There are an infinite number of loops. I'm saying "Oh, crap!" because I remember something important that I forgot to do every 7 and a half minutes. The house is a disaster and the kids are feral. I have given up closing the loops. The loops win.

—2—

I ordered Christmas cards almost a month ago, but since I hadn't yet written the family newsletter I send along with them, I tucked the Christmas cards away for safekeeping. 

I think you know where this is going.

Long story short, I wasn't even mad when I finished the newsletter and realized I had no idea where I'd stashed the cards. Honestly, I even felt a little relieved at the prospect of not having to address and stuff all the envelopes. "I either want to find them tonight, or not at all," I told Phillip. "They'd just better not turn up in February."

Anyway, we found them after 20 minutes of tearing the house apart so I did have to address and stuff them, after all, but the kids helped with that part so it wasn't that bad.

—3—

My two oldest daughters are home from college for their Christmas break. Everyone is loving having them here. 

In fact, just last night the 20-year-old was giving the 8- and 10-year-olds a double piggyback ride, with the other kids laughing at the sight of their triple rear ends from behind and calling them "the three buttsketeers." 

I don't exactly create memories like that as a parent, so needless to say the kids are having the best time.

—4—

Phillip and I had been hoping to surprise the girls with more progress toward finishing the basement, but then the garage door opener broke and we had to fix that instead. 

Our basement trim might not be installed, but at least the 10-year-old learned something about garage door openers.

I guess that's the problem with doing home improvement projects yourself. Whenever you try to work on it, you've got to pause and take care of something critical that stops working — the dishwasher, the dryer, the kids' toilet. It never ends.

—5—

My 16-year-old wants to get contacts instead of glasses, so they scheduled him for a "contacts lesson." They showed him a video about how to insert and remove contacts, and then set him up with a mirror so he could try doing it a few times while they watched and gave helpful hints. Apparently there's a steep learning curve because it took forever.

My son stayed patient, but I was eager to get out of there. If you've never sat in on a contacts lesson, let me tell you that watching someone clumsily poke at their own eyeballs for 25 minutes is not pleasant.

—6—

Both the 8- and 13-year-old had separate holiday recitals on Saturday. When you take the actual 4 hours of recital time plus the required early arrival for each performer (and me, too, since they can't drive), I felt like the music school should consider setting up accommodations for live-in parents like myself. 

Both recitals were a lot of fun. My son played "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker on the piano, and for his first recital it went really well. My daughter is getting over a cold so her voice was a little husky for her singing recital, but it actually worked with her song "Snowman" by Sia and people probably thought it was on purpose.

—7—

I hurt my neck over the weekend. After almost a week it's getting better, but for the first few days I was practically unable to move it at all and I was pretty miserable. 

Do you know what crazy thing I was doing to mess up my neck so badly? I reached up too fast to dry my hair with a towel. Getting older is wild.

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7 Quick Takes about Choosing a Christmas Tree, Solving Local Mysteries, and When the Nutcracker Doesn't Go the Way You Want It To

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

—1—

We went to a pick-your-own farm to get our Christmas tree. (Actually, we went to two but the first one weren't letting customers cut down any more trees until next year.) 

The teenagers helped cut down the tree and load it onto the cart while the younger kids threw snowballs at each other and were generally oblivious to what was going on.

At least they stopped complaining for a few minutes about being bored, cold, or thirsty.

There were so many cute little kids at the farm. We saw one dad with a hacksaw headed toward the trees and his preschooler toddling after him to help with the plastic toy chainsaw he was carrying. In the parking lot, a couple was pushing their little girl in a Cozy Coupe with a little 2' tree tied to the roof. It was an overwhelming amount of cuteness in a relatively small geographical area.

—2—

On the way home from the Christmas tree farm, Phillip commented, "You know, our selection process is the same every time we do this."

"We wander around randomly?" one of the kids guessed.

"Yes, but we wander around randomly with everyone pointing out ones we like, until finally we get to a tree where Mom says 'How about this one?' and that's the one we end up bringing home."

"Hmm," I said noncommitally, unwilling to admit that I'm bossy and probably hard to live with sometimes. "So you're saying that without me, we'd never pick a Christmas tree? You're welcome, guys!" 

—3—

Sometimes, we see this car driving around town with a personalized license plate that says 'CORN.' The kids and I have wondered what it means and speculated whether it's an inside joke, or if they really like 1990s alternative metal music but 'KOЯN' was already taken, or what.

But the other day I noticed the car parked near the barn of a small farm in our town, and I realized: the guy is literally a corn farmer. I love it.

—4—

My daughter comes home telling me the most ridiculous things. She says that "gyat" is new slang for "a big butt."

Call me old-fashioned, but in my day slang words at least followed a loose logic. They were short for something like "dis" for "disrepect," or they combined two words like "chillax." In some fashion, your mind could connect the dots without a lot of context.

But 'gyat'? It's just a bunch of random letters. Even the kids in middle school who are saying it will admit that they don't know why it means that.

Probably the etymology of 'gyat.'

—5—

I was sitting in a waiting room at my medical lab, and saw the best mom come in holding the hand of her disabled adult son. She spoke with so much kindness in her voice and took her time to talk with him about everything instead of just doing it herself.

When he needed to use the bathroom she suggested "Let's knock to make sure no one's in there first" and then waited outside in case he needed help. When he came out, she asked kindly, "Did you wash your hands?" and then when he wouldn't stop playing with the water she complimented him on doing a good job rinsing and guided him back out into the waiting room. 

She just did it all with such patience and love, like she probably had been doing every day for the last 30 years. It really warmed my heart to see. 

—6—

Some contingent of our family goes to see The Nutcracker ballet almost every Deceember, but this year I was super-excited because my 8-year-old is playing "Waltz of the Flowers" in a piano recital on Saturday. I wanted to see his reaction to hearing (and seeing) it live.

Working on memorizing his piece.

This year I splurged a little on Nutcracker tickets, picking a higher-end ballet that we ordinarily can't afford because (1) fewer of us were going this year, and (2) a few performances of the performances were offering half-price admission for kids.

So wouldn't it be sad if traffic the entire way from our house to the theater was so terrible that it took us over twice as long to get there as I'd planned, and we missed the first 30 minutes of the show?

—7—

Well, that's exactly what happened. I'm not going to say that I wasn't stressed out of my mind sitting in stop-and-go-traffic watching the ETA on the GPS creep later and later and later for the entire trip. I also won't say that the kids and I weren't disappointed to miss the first half-hour which included the entire Christmas party at Clara's house. But it turned out okay in the end.

I honestly felt a little better when we joined a dozen other people in the lobby who'd apparently had just as disastrous a journey and were waiting to get in late, and by the time they let us in and got to our seats we were just in time to see the Mouse King (my boys' favorite) and the dancing snowflakes (my favorite). 

Amazing costumes, amazing set.

It actually turned out to be a lovely evening with my 3 youngest kids. They enjoyed the show and during intermission we got up and checked out the pit orchestra, where my daughter found a few stray pieces of confetti "snow" and took them home for souvenirs and I got a laugh out of the trombones all watching a football game during their break.

When the orchestra started playing Waltz of the Flowers in the second act, the 8-year-old flashed me a huge grin and thumbs-up... so even after the horrendous drive and the frustration of missing ¼ of the expensive show, I was still glad we'd come.

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7 Quick Takes about Claustrophobia, the Art of the Backhanded Compliment, and Adventures in Cosmetics

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

—1—

Well, I finished reading Parenting with Love and Logic. I may not have loved everything about the book (see my full review on Goodreads), but it definitely made me realize it's time to deal with a few chronic issues in the house.

One of them is being on time to church. Well, anywhere, really, but church is a good place to start. To my kids, "leaving at 11:30" means "start thinking about where on earth you left your coat at 11:30" and that's not really the same thing. So I decided to apply Love and Logic to the problem.

I informed the kids that this Sunday, the van would be exiting the driveway at exactly 11:20. Whoever was in it would get a ride to church, and whoever didn't would be walking there. Generously, I gave them copious warnings:

"The time is now 10:40. Be ready to go in 40 minutes!"

"Leaving in 20 minutes!"

"Ten minutes until departure: that means 5 minutes to finish up what you're doing and 5 minutes to put your shoes on and get in the car!"

"I'm going out to the car now, it will be driving away in 5 minutes!"

In the end, I drove away with only one of the four kids. And do you know what the 10-year-old said when he finally showed up at church, face flushed from walking 10 minutes in the cold? "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?"

We'll see if his hearing is as selective next week when we do the same thing.

—2—

I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring since the swelling incident a few weeks ago. Not physically unable, but mentally. I've slipped the ring on my finger a few times, but each time I start to hyperventilate at how it feels a little snug going over my knuckle and then I yank it off in claustrophobic panic.

A few days ago I started reading Michael J. Fox's memoir No Time Like the Future, and I kid you not, on page 47 he falls and injures his ring finger, which swells until it necessitates an emergency visit to the hospital, by which time it's cut off his circulation so much they almost have to amputate his entire finger.

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSE DOING?! I'm already freaked out, there's no need to keep beating me over the head with this. Also, in a double irony, I was reading the book before bed but instead of getting sleepy I got an adrenaline rush with a side of impending doom.

—3—

The kids took down a framed picture on the wall, took off the back, and found this 15-year-old photo of Phillip and I hidden behind the one on display:  

My daughter gasped and said, "Mommy, you used to be so pretty!"

If she had more self-awareness, she would've looked at how exhausted and crabby I am now after a decade of dealing with her shenangians and drawled like Steve Urkel: "Did I do that?"

He gets it.

—4—

You know that product Poo-Pourri? You spray it in the toilet before you use the bathroom. Well, apparently the flowery bottles and logos only speak to women, and the company figured out how to make it for boys, too: you put it in a toolbox.

It's all in the marketing.

It's still going to be all women buying this product, but now they can get the "throw a monkey wrench into bathroom stench" version for their husbands or dads. 

Because I can't see any man buying himself a toolbox that says "Master Crapsman" on it.

—5—

For the last several years, I've gone through phases where I do go running for exercise regularly, but I've never been able to call myself a runner with a straight face. I don't even know if I want to, because that comes with all kinds of expectations like that I will run a 5K with you and I don't want to live under that kind of pressure. 

Whenever someone asks me if I run, I usually hesitate and say, "Well, I jog... but I don't like it." But I've been realizing that I think I can claim being a runner, if I want to. I run 2.5 miles a couple of times per week. I even did it earlier this week in 25° weather when it would've been way easier to stay inside.

I still don't know if I want to adopt this identity. I'm only saying that I technically could. I want to be enough of a runner to stay in shape and feel energetic, but not so much that I have an embarrassing poop story like most of the distance runners I know.

—6—

We got our first real snow of the season. Of course, Phillip had stuck the shovels in the loft over the garage at the end of last winter, and since he'd already left for work it was my job to get them down.

Which sounds way easier than it actually was, because:

1. He'd put them up over the rafters where no normal-height person (including me) could reach them, and
2. Directly beneath the shovels was a gaping hole with a one-story drop to the concrete garage floor, from temporarily removing the pull-down stairs to fix them (although that happened years ago so it's becoming more permanent than temporary, but I digress.)

Anyway, here is the text I sent him at work that day: 

Sadly, his plot to commit life insurance fraud failed, and I retrieved a shovel and cleared the driveway without incident. He'll have to try harder than that.

—7—

Makeup question: how in the world does any woman find the right foundation color? I've always used the "guess and hope" method of holding random bottles up next to my face in CVS and trying to match my skin color, but it never works well. I always think I picked a good one, until I take it home and try it on and I look like a mime. (Sometimes like an oompa loompa, depending.)

After my last failed expedition to the cosmetics aisle, I decided to get little more methodical for next time. I needed to arrive with better data. 

I took a selfie, uploaded it to a vector graphics program, and used the color matching tool to get a sense for my actual skin tone. Pixels don't lie, and I realized that my skin is pinker than I thought it was. Which makes my past failures make more sense because I was consciously steering away from pink-leaning foundation, thinking that wasn't me.

Am I closer to finding my foundation color? Probably not by much. But I feel like I learned something, at least.

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