Monday, April 27, 2009

National Scrapbook Day


Whew! I am happy to be here today. I had my National Scrapbook Day crop on Saturday and, while the crops are always a lot of fun to put on, I'm also always happy to have them behind me. It feels a little bit like a new year with exciting plans and fun stuff to look forward to.

I didn't take any pictures from Saturday, but Peanut Head did manage to snap a couple of me assembling the cake--the Strawberry Cream Cake.


Here I am, slicing strawberries to put between the layers of the cake. I don't know what I was thinking with that uncharacteristic calm look on my face, because I was freaking out most all day.

You see, Friday, the day that I should have been doing scads of food prep for Saturday, I decided to detail my kitchen from top to bottom. It's a classic procrastinating technique. When I was in college, my house was never cleaner than it was during finals week. Cleaning is always better than studying.

The really ironic part is that I've been procrastinating spring cleaning my kitchen for months. Go figure.

So, Friday I took all 45 bottles of alphabetically arranged spices out of my spice rack and dusted each of them individually as well as the spice rack. And while I was at it, why not disassemble the toaster to get all those nasty crumbs out? And take all the rocks out of my bamboo stalk arrangement and wash them? Yes, I washed rocks. And it went on and on and on. You would have been proud of me though, because I drew the line at cleaning my oven. It is still just as nasty as ever. But I'm going to get right on that this week. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. This week.

So, my kitchen is clean except for inside the oven, the refrigerator and underneath the major appliances. No need to gross myself out.

The problem was, because I went into that cleaning frenzy, it meant that I needed to spend my entire day in the kitchen Saturday, doing the things I should have done Friday. That was a bummer, because I didn't get to visit with my guests. It sounded like they were having a good time though.

I miss them. Sigh.

So, as I was saying, it feels like a new year to me now that this event is behind me. I have lots of things to share with you, starting with the best oatmeal cookie recipe EV-ER. I'm going to try to get that up tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. Well, let's be real here. Sometime this week, okay?

I woke up feeling frisky today, feeling like there is no To Do List that I can't conquer, happy to face my day, I walk in to wake up Zoe Bug . . .



and this is the freaked out, gnarled mess of a head of hair that I found. This hair. This hair that took me 30 minutes to untangle. This hair that turns me into Scary Mommy which causes me to ask my kid over and over "Do I need to shave your head? Perhaps you would like a mohawk? We are getting a boy cut TO-DAY."

And it never fails, at some point in all this panic and wigging out, usually after I've spent 20 minutes working on this rat's nest, I realize that she is going to miss her bus. And since there is nothing I can do about that, a strange sense of calm washes over me and Happy Mommy slips back into my head. Then I start talking real sweet to my poor little bug who is by now freaked out and terrified that I'm going to shave her head and she will be teased on the playground for the rest of her life. She'll be scarred and will require intensive therapy because I screwed her up. Over and over again.

Perhaps needless to say, starting off my day like this sort of discombobulates me.

Yes, I got off to an unsettling start, but like any good superhero would do, I had cake for breakfast and I'm ready to give it another go.

It's good to be back.

21 comments:

  1. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That picture kills me. Sorry Zoe girl...can't help but let out a big laugh everytime your mama puts that picture up! :)

    Gonna say just the strawberries look a yum! :)

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  2. Classic, classic, classic!

    I love knowing I'm not the only one who launches into full out deep cleaning mode when there is a massive unrelated task looming. I always thought something was wrong with me for doing that! ; )

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  3. Sorry, I got stuck at "cake for breakfast". I know I was going to say something else, but I can't think now. It's all your fault! And we have no cake in the house. You are SO lucky we don't live closer! :)

    Cheers, Kiy

    P.S. For the record, I'd rather study than clean. But then I'd rather do anything than clean ... even a root canal.

    P.P.S. And poor Zoe! That picture get's me every time, poor baby.

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  4. Hahahahaaha! I actually shaved both of my oldest girls' heads once. And bought them hats. And sent them back to school. Yup. I am THAT mom. =D

    As for the cleaning... I clean when I am freaking out. I babysat 5 ADHD kids once when my 3rd (always screaming, cannot put him down baby) was little. It was supposed to be 3 hours. They were over for 9 hours. NINE HOURS!!!! They were HORRIBLE! By the time their mother showed up I had taken the entire double-oven OKeefe and Merritt 1970s stove apart and cleaned each of the ovens, their doors, hinges, the 5 burners and their gas pipes, the glass backer, the broiler... it wasnt so bad except the 2 screws I couldnt figure out where to put when I was done. =D

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  5. That cake looks so yummy! I'd want to eat it for breakfast too, especially since it has fruit after all. It's practically breakfast food!

    Poor little Zoe! My daughter's hair was seriously curly when she was little but it NEVER went that bad. How does she do it?

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  6. oh my gosh, we MUST be related! My hair does that same.exact.thing when i go to bed with it wet! I FEEL HER PAIN!! It was HORRIBLE when I was a kid!!

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  7. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! For sharing that amazing picture of your daughter! I so needed a laugh when I saw it! She made my day!!! You should so enter that into a contest!!!!!

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  8. I always say I'm NOT saving up for college I'm saving up for therapy because we all know I messed up one way or another.

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  9. That hair! What on earth does she do to create that hair? BTW, my little tiny apartment in college was spotless during finals. When I taught 4th grade it was spotless during report card time. I guess I need a new reason to procrastinate so I can get some cleaning done. How do the counters accumulate so much clutter? I don't get it.

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  10. So sorry about Zoe...poor thing. AND...a huge thank you for scrapbook day. Love the food, love the company, love all you do to make it such a fantastic day for all of us. Thank You!!!

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  11. Zoe rocks at night, with the top of her head on her mattress. My mom commented one time that she looks like a jocking riding his horse when she's rocking. It would be funny if I didn't have to deal with the end result in the morning. It seriously makes me crazy(er).

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  12. ok, trying the commenting thing from another computer at our house......looks like it might work...for some reason my new laptop won't let me comment on blogs that have the post a comment box like you have......hmmm......

    Suzanne

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  13. If you wrapped her in Press and Seal, that probably wouldn't happen...

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  14. 1. I want a piece of that cake - deLISH.
    2. I have that hair every morning when I wake up...I feel her pain. ; )

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  15. LOL
    You are too funny!

    That hair would turn me into a frenzy also! What a cutie!

    Cake for breakfast, cake for lunch, cake for dinner. Hey! It has fruit on it!

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  16. I am the same way! when company is coming, I want to get in and deep clean instead of just making things presentable. I end up getting stressed out and am usually too exhausted to enjoy things by the time company arrives.

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  17. Oh poor little Zoe-bug, maybe if she got cake for breakfast she wouldn't have so much trouble sleeping!

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  18. Why, oh, why, did you send me a chore box instead of yourself? I'd get much more done if you were doing the cleaning for me instead! ;)

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  19. The hair is awesome! The hair plus the "I love Santa" shirt plus the pouty face, even BETTER!

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  20. Oh my! Does Zoe wake up every morning like this? Is this a symptom of ADHD? Having had a neighbor whose oldest child was ADHD, I can sympathize with you but didn't realize this was one of the things that a child would do. I've heard of the rocking and have seen it during the day with a visitor's child. I really believe that I that I have Adult ADD..I get sidetracked when doing things, yet in my mind I am organized. I am constantly dealing with paper clutter because I print off so much stuff from the internet. It is easier for me to read the hard copy than the monitor and to comphrehend what is says. They didn't know what ADD or ADHD was when I was growing up..never heard of it until 30 plus years ago. I first heard of it when my oldest child who is 43 was in elementary school. There wee several kids in his class that were ADHD. One kid idolized my son but whenever he could, he would cause bodily injury to him.

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