Book a cheap European cruise.

Oh my Heavens, we’ve been home from our massive vacation forever and I can’t seem to get this finished. Posterity can be so demanding, like any of them will really ever care about our European vacations.

The morning after the split skull debacle in Garmisch we woke early and made the lovely drive to Switzerland where we stayed at the temple and visited the Swiss Alps. The temple hostel was awesome in a dorm/prison kind of style, but it had a big user-friendly kitchen and play room in the basement and the kids thought our bunk room was the coolest thing ever. I would have liked a chair to sit on but who’s counting? Jason and I woke early and did a session before heading off to the Alps. We tried to take a family picture and included everyone who was cooperating. Kind of makes you wonder which one of us might not make it on the other side…I’m kidding. Really. Just kidding.

This was a mostly awesome day, unfortunately June came with us. We took the kids on a tram that goes right up to the village of Gimwald. It’s the only way to access the teensy community perched in the tops of the mountains. Years ago they got smart and declared themselves and “avalanche zone” to ensure that developers wouldn’t hone in on their family centered community. It’s a little farming settlement and the road zig zags it’s way past the three or four dozen houses with a view of the mountains that is enough to make you giddy. It could have been the altitude but I think it was the majesty that really got me.

Apparently it also got June. She had three time-outs almost back to back on the steps of a boarded up gasthaus. I managed to avoid yelling (echos and avalanches, you know) and we made it off the mountain with all four children in tow.

We headed south to Genoa (a cool city, hardly saw it) to catch our cruise ship and spent the afternoon at the buffet. The ship was on the smaller end of cruise ships but the kids were thrilled to see “Crewey” and settled in without the usual “first day on the boat” drama.

Our first stop was Marseilles (pronounced Mar-say). It might have been my favorite stop of the whole trip. The weather was phenomenal and we were having a lovely morning, getting ready for the boat ride out to the Chateau d’If (Count of Monte Cristo, anyone? Notice the boat name?) when Harrison ran smack into a pole while reading his map and just about broke his nose. Of course, this is also the day I forgot to bring wipes off the boat with me.

He survived the hemorrhaging and we  finally boarded the boat. Things were pretty good from there on out. The island was so cool, desolate and and rugged and creepy and beautiful, and the prison was perfectly old and terrifying. Georgia was freaked out the entire time. I managed to get enough great pictures of my kids to cancel out the need for a professional photo shoot this year. Our Chateau d’If photos turned out fantastic, I’ll edit them more before printing but here’s the raw stuff. I’m standing with the kids in front of the “Graffiti Wall” with stones from prisoners who had stayed there in the 1800’s. After If, we took a little trolly train up to a church for a view of the city. Breathtaking.

Our next stop was Barcelona, we visited Goudy’s most famous church and it absolutely boggled my mind. It was…stunning. Sometimes words are stupid, there aren’t really any to describe this place. It was refreshing and thoughtful and mathematical and I swear it’s destined to turn up in a Dan Brown novel any day now. The massive inside pillars were tree stems with flowers holding the ceiling in place, and everything was designed to reflect the wind and the plants and Mother Earth. It was cool, very light and very sacred.

After visiting the church we hit the main thoroughfare where all the tourists and pick pockets congregate. They sell the typical tourist garb, but they also sell little pets. Our kids all begged for bird or a hamster or a turtle, anything that breathed. It’s hard to say no to Georgia.We found a sprawling, bustling food market. For those of you who have been to Seattle’s famous Pike Place, don’t ever go to the one in Barcelona. It will ruin Seattle for you. 

In the night we went by Gibralter and Jason got a photo. I finally got up the nerve to look at his head. Totally freaked me out, but it was very effective. Taxi drivers gave him a major discount and people literally scrambled out of his way.

He took every available opportunity to blame his Frankenstein on me, BTW. 

After a refreshing day at sea we pulled into Morocco for a wild adventure in Casablanca. Taxi drivers there are psycho. They practically come to blows over potential customers yelling and shoving each other, it was like Jerry Springer Live, in Arabic.

We visited the third largest mosque in the world and took an amazing tour. Cool stuff. Then we hit the old shopping market and made out like banshees with totes and pottery and clothes and shoes, and Jason found a lovely Turkish lamp that got broken on the ride home. I don’t really want to talk about that, or about the stuff I didn’t buy and keep kicking myself over. Why? Why didn’t I spend more money there??

After Casablanca we went to a little Spanish almost-island called Cadiz. It was a perfect day, we walked from the one side to the other, played at the beach with our friends for a few hours, then made the thirty minute walk back across the almost-island to the boat. Not much else to report.

Lisbon was our last day. It was cool because my Father-in-law dusted off his Portuguese from a few decades in storage and managed to get us on the right trolly cars at the right time. It is definitely a city that deserved a good three-day weekend, we rode the old Trolly 28 up to the castle and browsed some amazing shops. We went in one super chic little boutique where the owner weaves all the fabric and her assistant sews all the clothes and jewelry from it. They literally hand make everything, start to finish, and every piece is a one-of-a-kind. I should have taken a photo or bought something, but Jason had the camera and the money and was two blocks away. Regretful? Yes.

If I were better at blogging these photos wouldn’t be so jumbled. At this point, however, I’m just glad to have them posted.  

Tell me I’m not the only one who is experiencing mathematical PMS, I swear it multiplies every month.

I find PMS in general extremely unfair, and not to me. I don’t have to live with myself, I have an out of body experience every month right about That Time and some raging lunatic woman moves in to take over. I have very little memory of her behavior or motivations, but I know she tends to snap her teeth. She also consumes mass quantities of really inappropriate carbohydrates. I kind of hate her, she’s killing my figure.

See, all those years I was having and nursing and trying to get pregnant with babies I didn’t have to deal with this stuff. In fact, in the course of twelve years I only had eight cycles, and four of them were pregnancies.

And then I got my tubes tied and Heaven no longer felt obligated to regulate my baby making abilities and voila! I’m all normal and hormonal. It’s so stupid.

This PMSishness runs in my family, my mom says she can remember waking up in the morning a week or two before her you-know-what and rolling over to glare at my father because he was…there. Have you met my dad? He’s an angel. This is how I feel. My poor littles, they do the smallest things and I fly off the handle, then have to repent and apologize and go sit in Downward Dog for a few minutes to try and gather my wits about me.

You know it’s bad when your husband says, “Honey. I think you have PMS, you’re being really horrible,” and you feel nothing but relief.

“YES! That’s what this is!! I have insane PMS, please help me! I am a crazy lady, do not hold anything I say or do in the next 144 hours against me because I am a full blown LUNATIC!!!”

I think I need to have my uterus microwaved.

We are currently sitting on a cruise ship just outside of Barcelona, six days into our epic spring adventure, and I’m wondering why we ever left home.

I should have known things weren’t looking good on our first night. One of the big problems with car trips is my unquenchable urge to pack junk food. I hate it, I shouldn’t do it, none of us need it. But all that food I try so hard to keep out of the kitchen during real life finds its way into the backseat and we spend the entire ride passing around peanut butter cups and potato chips and Coke Light and Capri Suns.

We took Jason’s parents and headed south to Bavaria to enjoy a little time at the Cinderella castle and Garmisch. It was almost lovely. If only we could have stayed in the car out of the cold all day it would have been perfect. Still, things went smoothly.

That night we checked into our hotel and made our way down to the large family swimming pool and outdoor jacuzzi. There’s nothing better than cold weather and a hot pool. My husband loved it so much he soaked for nearly an hour before grudgingly removing himself to come up for bed.

I met Jason and the kids at the elevator outside the pool area and we split into two groups. Jason took our seven-year-old, Rex, and got in line for one elevator while the rest of the girls and I waited for Grandpa and Harrison (9). I watched my two boys step into the elevator and smiled to see Rex tugging on Jason’s hand. He insisted they hold hands, something Rex rarely does with Jason now that he’s “big”.

Four minutes later we stepped off the other elevator and headed down the hall toward our room. There was a large group of people clustered in the hallway twenty feet ahead and I looked for a path through the mix.

Then I heard a frantic voice yell, “Mommy! It’s Daddy, he fell down and died!”

I have to pause here. My husband is a rock. He’s the human version of a draft horse; he’s strong and powerful and could probably carry all four of our children up a mountain at the same time without stopping. I’m the silly weak one. I’m the one who breaks her back and sprains her ankles and adds drama and Tabasco sauce to our life. It’s not Jason. Ever.

The group parted and there he was, my man, my strength, my sweetheart, face down on the ground and unresponsive. The entire episode confused me. What in the world was he doing down there? I kept patting his back saying, “Sweetheart, come on now, let’s get up.” I  almost offered him an ice cream cone or a pastry if he’d just raise his head and look at me.

It took me about thirty seconds to realize he wasn’t moving and my children were sobbing and my poor mother-in-law was standing there in shock and if I didn’t take control of the situation we would be adding PTSD therapy to our Emergency Room bill.

I turned and gave the kids a Disneyland smile. “It’s okay kids, Dad just bumped his head and he needs a moment. Go with Grandma and get your jammies on and I’ll come check on you  in a few minutes.” Good thing I sent them away. When my father-in-law and I turned Jason over he had a deep 3 cm gash on his beautiful bald forehead and another small cut over his eye.

It took a trip to the ER and a dozen stitches for us to learn that a day in the car with candy and no water, plus an hour in a hot pool, is a recipe for fainting. And it was only the beginning. In the five days since we’ve had three cases of the stomach flu, two sore throats, and a nearly busted nose (Harrison ran smack into a pole while reading a map in Marseille yesterday week).

Believe me, if you’re traveling in Europe with kids there are worse things than pickpockets.

Today I cleaned out Harrison’s (9) backpack. It’s day uno of Spring Break and Jason’s folks get here tomorrow, we’re heading out on an epic adventure and I’m dying to get out of Dodge. Excluding Disneyland, this is the first bit of traveling we’ve done since last September and it’s going to be a goody–driving down through Switzerland to stay at the temple housing and do a session, then on to Genoa for a nine-day cruise along the French Riviera, Spain, Portugal, Morocco…you’d think I would know by now that this trip will come with a hefty dose of travel trouble but I really don’t care.

Back to the backpack. I am pleased to report that there were no moldy lunches in his backpack this year, only four months of papers to go through. I was tempted to dump the pile halfway through but I know I’m supposed to care so I stuck with it.

I’m so glad I did.

I found two letters he’s written this month for school assignments. The first is a letter written to A Person of Interest. The letter reads:

Dear Indiana Jones, 

I am writing to say that I would love to come and discover the lost temple and the lost ark with you and your team. But I have a few questions to ask: How long will it take, will we have enough food, will we be able to contact our families, will we journey through the night, will we have sleeping bags just in case, will we have weapons in case something happens? Thank you for answering my questions. Oh! By the way how man days will we be gone, how many people are on your team, and when will we be leaving? Thank you for answering those questions, and thanks again for letting me come with you on your adventure. 

Yours sincerely, 

Harrison J

I love that one of his first concerns is the amount of food and whether or not he can call home. This second letter is particularly precious to me, especially the last paragraph. I think he was supposed to write a formal letter requesting some sort of action.

Dear Ms. Remoy,

Every Friday is so long and never short unless there is no school on Friday or if some students are on vacation. Plus we only get at least 20-40 minutes of fun Friday. But I think it would be better if all the students have a half-day Friday because each and every 5 days of the week all the students work very hard on their work and projects.

And our families miss us all day and want to see us. And we want to see them too. We are always happy when we get to see them, play with them, laugh with them and watch TV with them and other fun stuff.

Please do that, 

Harrison J

He’s a great kid, these are going in his file for sure. Finding these little gems made me really happy to be his mom.

I was talking to my girlfriend about sewing a few weeks ago and mentioning how I had downloaded a few patterns from Etsy.

“Really?” she said, “I never use patterns. I just…figure it out.”

Huh. I used to do that way more but ever since I took a sewing class I’ve gone back to basic rules and margins. But man, the moment she said it my mind started to work.

Then we saw the new Oz movie and on the way home I started thinking about the costumes in the old Oz movie, which made me think about Babes in Toyland because don’t we all just love the dresses from that movie?  By the time I got home there wasn’t even time to pee, I had to run straight to my sewing room and start cutting pattern pieces. Two weeks later, this is what I ended up with for Easter. To be honest, I didn’t intend to use the green polkadot as anything but practice fabric for June’s peplum top, but it was so cute with the old yellow from my scrap bin that I had to use it for Georgia’s dress too. The girls’ dresses and under slips cost me $20 for the pink fabric, everything else was recycled.

This next dress is from a great tutorial I bought on Etsy, I used the bodice for Georgia’s Easter dress above as well. It is also made from my scrap bin (minus the pink ruffles) and was incredibly simple to do. June helped, we made this for her darling cousin, Meara, and sent it for Easter. I’m hoping to get a picture of her in it if it ever gets there. We gave the USPS nearly two weeks priority and it still didn’t make it in time for Easter. Bummer.

Yesterday I was going through a bunch of my cast away clothing from my closet and found an old yellow girls’ camp T-shirt, plus some other knit dresses and jammies. I made each girl a new pair of leggings and a cute t-shirt, and this morning I made Georgia this adorable little dress from the camp shirt and a swim coverup I never wore (because swimsuits are stupid). Notice the pattern? I’ve used it enough times that I barely have to look at the pieces anymore. The back of this and her Easter dress are ribbed with rows of  elastic thread, sort of a lazy mom’s smocking. Makes them fitted and super comfy.

I’ll post pictures of the birdie mobiles I’ve been making later, but these are now on record for posterity’s sake. My mother always says she wished she had taken more pictures of what she made.

Disneyland and I have a love-hate relationship. Going to Disneyland is like having a baby: labor and delivery and recovery are miserable but three years later all anyone can remember is the “magic” of childbirth. Why? Why do I always think it’s going to be magical and rewarding and memory-building?

Disneyland Paris is not the same as the stateside parks. For starters, in the winter it’s cold. In the fall it’s cold. In the spring it’s cold. We went at the end of March and had low 40 degree weather the entire time. We were blessed with waterless skies but come on, you can only stand in line for Autotopia for so long in the freezing cold before you want to gouge your eyeballs out with a cheese stick.

This was our first trip without a baby in ten years and I have to say that was the one thing we did right: we left Georgia behind. But even without diapers our backpack was more like a 72-hour survival pack. Water, hand sanitizer (that we never opened), granola bars, a flashlight and a whistle, a tooth brush and a travel size tube of toothpaste because I’m currently on a clean teeth kick–we really didn’t even need to go back to the hotel for anything.

(FYI –  I spent the last night there cleaning up puke from two of the kids. The hand sanitizer would have been a good idea.)

We stayed at the Davy Crocket Resort about five minutes away from the park. It’s incredibly affordable, we paid for a three-day trip and got an extra night and two free days in the park because Disneyland in March is miserable and they know it. But the resort is great, something I wish was replicated at the stateside parks. It’s a glorified trailer park and refreshingly affordable. All the “bungalows” are oldish trailers with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen/dining/living space. It’s got it’s own village with a working farm, archery (closed), a zip line (closed), a few scattered tee-pees for show and the best pool in Europe. It comes with a criosant/juice breakfast (available for pick-up at The Breakfast Hut between 7-11) and an Easy Pass for park parking, fast pass tickets, and the get-into-the-park-two-hours-early “Magic” misery.

For the record, the only ride open at 8 am is Dumbo. I am dead serious. Do not go early, if you want to stand in line for the princesses feel free to tack on an additional two-hours to the usual 140 minute wait. Not my best idea.

The pool at Davy Crockett was open and great and the kids made us go swimming Every. Single. Night. When I say the pool was great I mean it was great for the kids. It was mostly cold and the hot tub was tepid. But hey, my kids loved it and I sat in the “watch” area and read a book.

Feel free to gawk at Jason’s face throughout this post. You are looking at a raging case of March Madness. Three. More. Days.

Things I really really missed at this park: Toad’s Wild Ride, Rapunzel in general, Toon Town, the Beauty and The Beast stage show, Indiana Jones, The Jungle Ride (loses it’s punch line in translation), and Splash Mountain (a tragedy) to name a few. But the park is well laid out and still has plenty of fun for everyone. Space Mountain 2 almost made me wet my pants it was so fun.

Directly across the street from Disneyland is Disney Studios, a spin-off of California Adventure meets MGM minus the Bug’s Life Tree (sob). It does have the Crush Coaster which is literally like riding the EAC, best coaster ever. But the most important ride in all the parks is there: The Tower of Terror.

Harrison went in The Tower of Terror a few years ago but it wasn’t too hard to fool him into thinking he was remembering another ride from another park. We were also careful to avoid using words like “terror” in the preliminary stages.

When we finally got into the ride’s hotel lobby June quickly commented on the cobwebs and wanted to know why the walls were broken. Rex was happily reviewing all the countries from “It’s A Small World” and Harrison was having PTSD flashbacks from two years ago. He started muttering things like, “I think I have to go to the bathroom,” and “Do we really have to go on this ride?” and “Isn’t this that ride that freaked me out?”

Thank goodness the Twilight Zone video was in French. The last part of the wait is in a rather dismal looking service area of the “hotel” and thunder and lightening effects rain supreme. By the time we stepped up to the elevator doors Rex was sobbing quietly and I was making false promises to the kids that the ride would be fun and we’d get to “see the whole park” from the top of the elevator.

That’s true, you do see the whole park. Then the bottom falls out and the elevator drops.

When that elevator went up and started the drop sequence the entire park could hear my kids screaming their heads off in absolute and total terror. It sounded like we were being attacked by an axe murderer.

I couldn’t stop laughing. I just…could not stop laughing. Worst parent ever? Possibly. Favorite memory of the week? Absolutely.

I’m pleased to report that for the rest of the trip we had extremely well-behaved children. We probably threatened them on three dozen different occasions that if they didn’t behave and get along we’d go back to the Tower of Terror. It was like…magic. Disney magic? You know it.

Tomorrow we take our spoiled little darlings to Disneyland, Paris for a few days of wet, slushy outdoor fun. I suppose that’s what you get when you book amusement park tickets for the cheapest week of the year–precipitation.

I don’t know what it is about large, rewarding events like a trip to the Mouse House that make all my children act so horrible. We like to think that they are frequently obedient and mostly respectful little creatures who know that their parentals follow through on threats and blessings alike. So how is it that the one week out of the year we’re slated to take a vacation tailored especially for them they turn into whiny, sassy little monsters who foam at the mouth and snap their teeth at us?

It got so bad during errands last week that I actually took June (5) to her father’s office and dropped her off with him so I could have a time-out.

It was the best five minutes of my afternoon. I don’t know what went on in Daddy’s time-out chair but he returned a much more humble, penitent little daughter to the van’s backseat. She might have mentioned something about Fire People with red eyes who live in the scary broken buildings, but I was too busy enjoying the lack of screeching to worry about it.

Due to the success of this event, I have decided that it would be particularly helpful to mother’s and father’s in general if police stations would consider opening a Naughty Room filled with dusty corners for noses and lengthy apology-provoking benches. Parents could check their kids in for 2-10 minute sessions and enjoy some refreshing elevator music and complimentary Diet Coke and Oreos.

The children, of course, would not receive cookies.

I had all four kids in the car yesterday and was amazed at the amount of pouting and punching going on in the back seat. “Everybody!” I finally hollered, “This has to stop right now! I am sick and tired of your fighting! You have been so disobedient this week, don’t you understand that if you’re not obedient to me and Heavenly Father you won’t get to Heaven?”

“Yeah, right,” I heard my nine-year-old mutter from the back seat. “You always say stuff like that.”

“Oh yeah? Well here’s one for you, how about I take away Disneyland?”  Immediately the entire car was tomblike. “Yeah,” I said, “That’s what I thought. If you want to get to Heaven you need to obey God. If you want to get to Disneyland you  need to obey me, got it?” Their cooperative silence and fear at my new threat was so complete that I managed to unload an entire five-minute sermon on the pitfalls of disobeying your parents, those on Earth and above. I also explained that Heaven is just like Disneyland except it’s always sunny and all the frozen bananas are free.

“And so,” I concluded, “If you want to get to Disneyland/Heaven you had better learn those two, extremely critical, all encompassing words that will get you through the rest of your week/life. What are they?”

“Uh…” June said.

“I love Jesus!” Rex said.

“I’m sorry?” Harrison said.

I sighed. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them, they never remember. “The two magic words for the week,” I held up two fingers, “are the same magic words that you’ve been saying your entire life… ‘Yes Mother!'” I was met with a resounding echo from the backseat and 24 blissful hours with my momentarily reformed, sort-of obedient children.

Tonight for family night I took a chapter from my girlfriend’s book and implemented the Repentance Bench to reinforce our new crack-down on familial obedience. I have the feeling it’s going to see a lot of action in the next few years.

“Honey,” Jason called from work last week, “You will never guess who is going to be here, tonight, at the BX on a USO tour…Austin Collie!” This name might not mean anything to most football fans but in my husband’s not so humble opinion, Austin Collie is potentially “one of the greatest wide receivers in BYU football history.”

Jason is just about as committed to our college Alma Mater and their athletic institution as he is to me. It goes without saying that after thirteen years of marriage I have come to accept that I will simply have to make do with half his heart.

“He’s going to be here with a group of athletes, you know, some Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and someone from the Red Sox, Paton Manning, an ex-American idol contestant, just a group of celebrities.”

I might not be a huge football buff but even I know that Paton Manning is pretty much the Elvis of this generation’s football world. But in my husband’s eyes the equation was simple: Paton Manning is great but he’s not a Cougar.

“Do you think I could get Austin to sign my Steve Young autographed football?” he said.

We arrived two hours early dressed to the nines in all things BYU. My girls were in full cheer costumes (complete with pom poms), the boys in their football jerseys, and my husband with blue and white stars in his eyes.

There were three or four families–about twenty people including kids–decked out in BYU gear to welcome Austin Collie. Amid a couple hundred Bronco and Red Sox fans it goes without saying that Austin was pretty much the least well known of the bunch; rumor has it he’s good friends with Mr. Manning and was probably invited at the request of The King.

After the show and two exhausting hours in line we finally started to move. That’s when the bad news came, “No autographs! No pictures! No speaking to the celebrities!” The look on my husband’s face was pure devastation.

“What?” he said, “We’ve waited all this time and I’m not even going to get an autograph?”

Now, I like my man to be happy. He constantly goes out of his way to spoil me, the least I could do was wrangle an autograph for him.

As we finally made our way to the top of the stairs we could see the ten celebrities sitting in a row in front of a back drop with Manning smack dab in the middle and Austin sitting just to his right. The fans were herded behind them in groups of 10-15 for a quick snapshot then immediately moved off for the next set. Super impersonal.

“Here,” I said to Jason as our turn grew near, “Get your marker and your football out and just…trust me.” In the shadow of the Paton Manning fans it was easy to see that we were probably the only ones who cared about Austin Collie. Chances were he’d appreciate our efforts.

Finally the moment arrived and we made our way along the back of the celebrity line. I leaned in past Mr. Manning and put a hand on Collie’s shoulder. “Austin! We are so excited to see you! You’ve got BYU fans here!”

His smile was huge. “Awesome! Thanks so much you guys!”

Despite the aggressive barks from the USO chaperones I moved in for the kill. “Excuse me,” I said leaning in past Paton Manning again, “Austin, would you please sign our Steve Young football? Just really fast? My husband is a huge fan!” Jason was standing behind me with watery eyes and a slack jaw. In hindsight I probably could have pulled the “emotionally delayed” card.

“Sure!” Mr. Collie said. I took the football from my shaking husband and passed it through. Then I noticed Paton Manning giving me the stink eye.

“Oh!” I said to Mr. Manning when I realized how odd our request must have looked, “Hi! Um…you’re here too!”

I guess my blood runs blue after all.

This morning Jason took a very rare and sorely needed sick day. Personally, Mondays might be my favorite day of the week. Everyone goes back to their own lives and I have the morning to do whatever strikes my fancy.

In typical Monday fashion, at 6 am I zombied out of bed and into yoga pants and one of Jason’s sweaters, sans a bra because hey, it’s Monday and I’m the master of the universe. Once the kids were off on the bus, the breakfast dishes done, June deposited in the local kindergarten and Georgia heavily invested in Land Before Time 7, I sat down to quilt.

I have quilting issues. Unfortunately for my housework and those in my family who rely on me for food and comfort, when I start a sewing project I get kind of manic about finishing it as fast as humanly possible. This is why I’ve avoided quilting for the past decade, there is nothing afternoonish about it. This particular quilting project is mostly huge (82 different swatches of fabrics for my blocks) and extremely messy and forget about brushing my teeth this week because who needs to talk to people anyway?

I quilted until ten when my doorbell ushered in the first of four scheduled singing students. Fuzzy teeth, unrestrained bosom, who cares? It’s Monday and I make the rules.

After two lessons and lunch for Jason I sat down with a massive pile of laundry to fold. Jason sat there and watched me (not because he isn’t helpful, he was a sick baby, people).

“So,” he finally said, “Do you…you know…like doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“You know, laundry, housework.”

“No, I do not like laundry.” These moments of martyredome are so delightful. There’s nothing better than being caught in the act of Cinderella-ish behavior and taking one for the team.

But I couldn’t quite pull it off. All I could think about was the fact that I was only doing laundry because I wanted to do laundry. There I sat, loose boobed and yesterday’s makeup smeared under my eyes, eight quilt blocks and two students to show for the morning, and all because I wanted to.

Why? Because in this little world of mine I am the most powerful, the most influential, the most opinionated person anyone in my little family knows. When I’m not happy, they’re not happy. When I’m in a good mood, they’re in a good mood. I decide what we eat, when we sleep, who has clean underwear and who doesn’t.

Oh, the power.

“Then again,” I said to Jason, “I am kind of the boss around here so I really can’t complain. No one told me to fold these clothes, did they? If I want to quilt all day I can quilt. If I want a nap at 9:30 in the morning, I nap. I like being the boss.”

“Man,” he said, “You are so lucky. I hate having a boss.”

“Yeah, poor you. Now go collect the whites so I can start another load.”

And he did. See what I mean?

I was just thinking about all the things I’m really fizzling at right now, like keeping my house clean enough and staying on top of my laundry. It’s 12:10 in the afternoon and I’m still in my bathrobe. What does that tell you about my morning?

But as I was passing my extremely sticky and overcrowded kitchen sink and floor (today’s excuse: I spent six hours in the ER with Harry and a slightly/almost/but not really broken wrist yesterday afternoon and into the evening so there wasn’t time to do the dinner dishes…or sweep) I spied Georgia’s apron.

A month or two ago I accidentally happened upon a really good idea that has been working like mad for me. Then I thought about two or three other things that I’m doing right now that don’t completely suck. Then I thought, I should write these ideas down for my posterity so they know that sometimes I managed to pull this mothering gig off.

Idea #1. Cheap home made birthday gifts. Due to a lack of attention/overcrowding of brain last December, I forgot that June had a birthday party to attend on a Saturday. Because it was right before Christmas and I was totally out of gift money I decided (an hour before) to throw together a little apron using one of the girls’ aprons as a pattern. I came up with the cutest thing using some fabric that was mostly horrible but turned out wonderful, then sent her off with a bag of cookie mix and the apron. The best part was that June totally helped me make it.

Three weeks later the exact same thing happened (procrastination is not my best pattern). Again we pulled out the fabric bin and made an apron. I could kick myself for not taking pictures, they are all different versions of this one that I made Georgia and they were all absolutely darling.

Super cute.

The day third birthday party (in six weeks) June asked me, “When are we making Hannah’s apron?” Since it was saving me some serious cash and forcing me to have quality mommy time with my girl I decided that it would be our new “thing” for birthdays. But when I went to grab a cookie mix we were out. But I had mason jars, so we made cookies in a jar instead. Best birthday gift ever. We even matched the apron fabric to the cookie jar lid.

I secretly can’t wait for the next five-year-old-friend birthday.

Idea #2. Reading with Rex. I got an email from a teacher a few weeks back who has been teaching kindergarten for something like 30 years. She said that of all the things she has done that have brought about success with children who are struggling with reading, a timer and ten minutes on the couch a day where the child reads orally is the absolute best. Something about it stuck in my brain.

Knowing that Rex thrives on routine routine routine, I decided that we needed to be more strict about exactly what, how and when we read everyday. I took her idea to heart and we have a special book bag that we read from. He and I set the timer and he reads to me for ten minutes then I read to him. It’s not that we weren’t reading before but it wasn’t the same thing. We would fit it in at different times and places where now it has become our special little routine and I think it’s really helping him (which makes me crazy happy).

Idea #3. Using the internet to study my scriptures. My good friend Yvonne was telling me a few weeks back that she finds her personal scripture study is far more successful when she has some kind of study guide and really sticks to it. I decided that I would try using the new Come Follow Me online youth curriculum during my personal scripture study since the lessons are full of links to scriptures and talks. I only do about 15 minutes a day but I find it’s been so easy and delightful to use the online system. I don’t usually get very far in the lessons because it regularly leads me to finish a chapter or look further, but it definitely makes my time in the scriptures a little richer and more fulfilling.

Three things that are right in my life today. I’m going to go take a shower and enjoy a fourth.