I’m Not Always Optimistic

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Scattermom

But when I am, it’s a delusion.

Yeah. Um. A week before spring break in MARCH, my kids got sick and my Superhuman, Worked Retail Handling Money Drenched with Gym Sock and Cleavage Sweat did not protect me.

Then Spring Break started and we built a buggy/bike garage. I estimated it would take a day. Since the structure still lacks a door “FINISHED” is simply not true.

And it’s May.

Then there was the onset of The Great Basement Clean Out, 2013 edition.

Why basement clean out? Book, you were writing? Two (three) reasons.

the untapped potential of 1178 square feet of space that doesn’t require air conditioning.
I had to sort, rearrange, toss, and clean the whole thing so I could tape off A Fort of One’s Own. Let’s just leave it at I thought I’d be done (back then I wanted walls) the week after Spring Break.
it was looking a little hoarders.

It’s May and AFOO is done. Who needs walls?

We also adopted (stole from the wilds of my mother in law’s porch) a new pet, aptly named Sir Walter TreeFroggy. That the frog-dude rocks a color coordinated monster truck in his terrarium was all Elliot.

Our anti-vole glue trap caught a 5 lined skink. He (she?) enjoyed an extra two weeks of well-loved life.

This kid will be done with kindergarten in another week. I can’t be the only mother that actually looks forward to the end of school?

What else? Um, probably a lot, but who can remember these things? I am killing the Bonbon Ninja– I simply don’t have time to do a different blog. Really, what was I thinking?

Oh right; Optimism vs. Delusion.

A Fort Of One’s Own

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Scattermom

A Fort of One’s Own, or AFOO (äf OO). That’s what I’ve done here.

Virginia Woolf wrote:

“a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

This quote rolled around in my head for a few months, since, um, winning an auction where Chuck Wendig will read a few thousand of my words and, um, critique them.

Damn Stephanie, you haven’t done that yet? Wasn’t that in, like, February? Shut it! I’m uninterested your deserved shock about my craptastic time-management skills. Anyway, I have almost 21k words– and a complete plot outline– but if my words were dinner, right now I’m 3 and they are the green beans.

Now, back to AFOO.

Certainly, Virginia and I are women of a different age. I have control over my reproduction (today. Who knows what surprises my whack-ass state legislature plan for Wednesday).

I am not financially dependent on my mate (crap, yes I am because this stay at home mom gig pays in crayon drawings and butt wipes. And love– don’t forget the love).

In the year 2013, unlike 1928, women aren’t harassed for their feminism, regardless of its chosen path. Women are no longer persecuted for their sexuality, sexual identities, or expected to prevent their own rapes (2013 seemed better in my head then I wrote it all out. Excuse me while I weep in my tequila).

Okay, skipping how amazing women have it now– sigh– and back to my point. I type these thoughts on a keyboard and words do whatever they do inside the CPU only to be spit out on my screen. When I hit save draft all of this gets stored…uh, somewhere interweb-like. Probably California.

Like Woolf– who, keeping it real here, suffered from her own early-century, first-world problems, I have the opportunity and the space; the chance to write and to create. The space changes here and there, and some variations are better than others.

But my writing wasn’t limited by a lack of space. I have a drawer of notes scribbled on a variety of different paper-type products. Most of my best ideas did not originate in this space of my own, but rather at stoplights, parks, or during the 14th iteration of chutes and ladders. Never has a lack of a desk stopped me from writing.

So it wasn’t a room that I needed, but permission to abandon what my ~~excuses~~; reasons for not writing.

No time. The kids. Distractions. Chores. Obligations.

So I took my ~~excuses~~; reasons and imagined what I’d tell someone complaining TO me about the same. Sheepish, that’s my face right now.

1) No time. Um, facebook. Blogs. Free ebooks that sucked before the end of the first poorly constructed sentence that I READ ANYWAY.

2) The kids. They live here and I have a responsibility for their care. However, they do get to watch some TV, and they are capable of bursts of self-entertainment. Will they interrupt me at some point? Yep, it’s what they do. By reasoning that I could expect a future interruption I found myself goofing off instead. See Item #1.

3) Chores. By the light of the computer monitor, this is an easy one. Either a) do them during the goofing off time from #2, or b) share them! A 4-year-old’s earnest attempt at floor mopping counts as the floor being mopped. Same goes with putting away laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning up the toys. It doesn’t stay clean, because little boys, a big boy, two dogs, a tree frog, and an ADD woman live here. Bonus to the chores– the little ones want a bearded dragon, for which they first need money. Not having to scrubbing someone else’s pee off the bathroom wall? That’s worth a dollar. Them learning the importance of good aim? Priceless.

4) Distractions. These are an adult problem, for me it goes one step further into the clinical. My brain takes a really long to time make it up Motivation Mountain and any interruption sends Engine #9 right off the tracks. Beyond medication, do you know what else helps?

Discipline: to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control.

For example, I know that opening an internet browser to debate people known to piss me off is like choosing to continue to smoke with your oxygen tank hooked up.

5) Obligations. Meet them and move on. Volunteer for less. Don’t let other people guilt you into things that you don’t want to do. Alternatively, don’t complain about the stuff you have volunteered for. Busy is bullshit, see #1.

I did not need a room (fort) of my own to write, though the autonomy and freedom gained from cast-off curtain sheers made me absurdly happy.

Upstairs? A couch? A bedroom? Pah– I have this fort, this space that I didn’t need, but makes me feel like a unicorn farting rainbows. WITH BUTTERFLIES.

It was intended that AFOO have walls, doors– you know, room-type things. Zach and I even discovered a kick-ass antique stained glass window at the reuse store being ignored by a pack of re-modelers in favor of vinyl. Shudder. But then I thought– walls, who need walls? I ain’t got time for no walls!

I like the carved-out-for-myselfness from behind the curtain. The Being Weird rather than buying mass produced weird.

The once-was-a-box-spring redone into a Mixed Media Abstract Art and Organization Center. No need to be judge-y, it’s a work in progress.

The swelling and explosion of my heart when I re-read The Yellow Wallpaper a few weeks ago. My silent concession to a long-ago professor who told a classroom full of 20ish year old women that they would “get it someday”.

Making silly art from it? With craft paper that I bought a decade ago because it reminded me of the story? Shrug, it’s whom I am.

The refinished desk and credenza.

Yes, I did duck tape my perimeter. You wouldn’t have?

The various objects that touch my soul or delight me with their whimsy. Here are a few.

A friend welded records together for us one year. I hung it from my house’s old television, pre-cable lines. Get it?

Don Quixote, dude. I always run full tilt- if it ends up being at windmills, so what. Windmills are cool, man.

When my office was upstairs, Elliot made me a megablock Duck statue.Last week he redesigned it. A few days after that, I noticed he’d been reading a book:

I totally see it– don’t you?

My space. My choice to create an eclectic, industrially-designed hide-out from the random stuff hanging out in my basement. Added bonus for getting rid of crap in my basement!

Or spray painting stuff from the backyard.

You won’t find a pinned inspiration room, because I didn’t copy someone else’s style.

Furthermore, I encourage more of you to build your own semi-permanent forts. To claim some corner as only yours, a place without toys, or paperwork, obligations, or expectations.

2013: The year adults Take Back the Fort.

Being a Mom Makes me do Weird Things

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Scattermom

As I held the teeny-tiny toes to a fishing lure frog, my fingers gummy with super glue, I knew I had something for Andrea’s You Know you’re a Mom When link up.

Behold, the inspiration. One squishy frog that brought such joy to the youngest Small Person that I felt my cynical heart peek out from the ashed remains of my hope for humanity. Elliot is, with a select few things, very easy to please.

Elliot and Frogly (not misspelled) cavorted together in their bath. Elliot told Frogly all about the blanket house they would build together. I listened to Elliot explain the safety rules betwixt Frog and Dog.

And then…

Frogly’s puny little toes fell off. At bedtime. An over-tired 4 year old’s bedtime.

Ah, the evening trifecta arrives just in time to relight the flames.

How do I know I’m a mom? Because I doctored up Frogly’s foot with super-glue, that’s how. And, as I wrestled with tape reinforcements (a cast, right?), JB checked the tackle box, finding duplicate Frogly.

We all live another day.

But wait– there’s more. Z has been rereading all of his “How to Train Your Dragon” books, in between which we’ve have long conversations about mythology, historical timelines, and evolution. When he asked, “Mom, can you…uh… make me a picture of everything important since, like, the dinosaurs?”

I assumed google was gonna hook me up. One free infographic on history from dinosaurs until now … what? No FREE INFOGRAPHIC? Cue microsoft word, insert tables, copy row, and carpal-tunnel-inducing cut and paste.

No worries– there WILL be a free infographic. Eventually.

But I did find out how to make him a viking helmet out of a t-shirt, duck tape, and some tin foil.

So. Many. Jokes.

Apparently this one has heard all the jokes. He was not a fan of viking helmet good times.

He did put on the Toothless tail though.

Sidebar: Go back up to the picture of viking Zach. Look down and right. See where I still haven’t rehung the doors on the armoire-turned-food-pantry (from January 2012) in my kitchen? Bah-ha-ha… I love me.

Finally, the coup de grâce– the tee-pee. Now, before y’all start throwing jokes, I’d like to point out a few things.

Alright, I used the jig saw for some of the large stuff, but c’mon!

Of course, now I want to build a yurt.

I’m also linking up to Blogher’s February NaBloPoMo, because, well, I wrote a post.

Not a Snowball’s Chance

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Scattermom

When you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt as temperatures hover in the sixties and it’s the middle of December… snow seems unlikely.

But this is North Carolina and I’m out of milk so it will probably snow tomorrow.

Elliot goes to a co-op preschool and I was in charge of the Winter Party. It was Joel and I– which turned out to be really special for E, since he’s never had the two of us without his brother. Poor Second Born child.

I always planned for the stuff around the party– crafts, games, favors– to be very simple. Why? Because these are 3 and 4 year olds and they have the attention span of hyperactive gnats.

Then I saw a friend’s pictures of felt snowballs. FELT SNOWBALLS! Have you ever heard of such a wonderful thing?

I hadn’t, but of course it exists! Michelle, author at Rust & Sunshine not only made some, she also provides a free pattern so you can do it, too.

*No, really– she did all the work already– I’m not typing out my own version of her instructions, because that would be, 1) a copyright violation, and 2) redundant.

First, I made two snowballs and handed them off to my Small People. If there is a way to cause either body or property damages with felt, it’s gonna be my kids.

After they remained both injury and argument free, I added balled up socks to their stash and started sewing the class snowballs. Party favors, dontcha know? Two balls per kid– because one snowball per kid is lame– for a total of 24 felt snowballs.

The greatest time investment–as it always is with sewing– was in the cutting. The sewing part only took 3-4 minutes per ball.

The 30 minutes of sustained fun had by the hyperactive gnats? Worth it!

Ways to Repurpose Cardboard Boxes into Storage

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Scattermom

I told y’all about that time I took a reciprocating saw to my living room couch, only to discover that the bulk of its shape was formed by cardboard, right?

That moment changed my life– and not just from listening to the myriad of excuses from JB on why I can’t have a reciprocating saw. For all his concerns, you’d think he’s afraid that I’m going to cut a hole in the wall, or something.
The real life changing moment came when I started considering how often I paid considerable amounts of money for products that could be disposed of in curbside recycling. Which led me to all the various ways one can repurpose cardboard boxes.

Thus began my love affair with repurposing our heavy-duty cardboard boxes.

These repurposed cardboard diaper boxes lasted Z at least 6 months.

15 month old Z rocking diaper box covered in contact paper.

66 month old Z rocking his box fort.

They’ve been building various forts, beds, and hotels from these boxes all summer. Finally, a common interest.

He and E intend to grow up to be hotel typhoons (tycoons).

This has also been the summer (for me) of committing to using what’s here before buying from the store. Homeless clutter needed clearly labeled homes.

Liquor boxes are perfect– separate compartments and very strong.

So many boxes and some left over spray paint… I do love to paint.

I do love to paint.

See, the clutter just needed someone to believe in it again– to look at what-some-would-consider-trash and find future purpose.

I dig it.

I mean some of these boxes were just another brick in the wall, you know?

I had to take down a few parts of the hotel.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And, *weep* look at him, cleaning his brush!

Double imitation, double flattery, mega cheese.

You’re with me so far, right? Nodding your head, and considering all the various storage things that can be made from a leftover shoe box.

Liquor boxes, being designed to hold large glass bottles full of liquid courage are made from some really heavy-duty cardboard. Then the separate compartments? Begging to be a felt storage unit!

The best is the cost– NOTHING.

And then? Well then I saw these rough edges and thought: bias tape. But I didn’t want to use my good bias tape, because well… I have no idea. Ah-ah! Homemade bias tape– can’t be that hard!

This is where I entered the Ridiculous Zone.

Normal people don’t end up in these creative places.

At this point, the only remaining option was to:

Ideas for Repurposing a Crib: The Lego Table

Posted on August 25, 2012 by Scattermom

I allow– nay, encourage — both kids to get down and dirty with the building projects. I want to pass the family tradition of DIY and ~~hoarding~~ repurposing common household items. Thus I started collecting ideas for repurposing an old crib about 2 years ago.

I love pinterest– I really do. However, long before wireless internet access and 4G networks, Good Housekeeping showed up in the mailbox. Women like Heloise shaped how I thought about housekeeping– and pantyhose.

Playing with Barbie to the background music of This Old House and Victory Garden adds up to more than a decade’s worth of subliminal suggestion. Mixing that with Wrath of Khan and the Shaolin Monk and… yeah, my formative years molded me eclectic.

Teaching children to see the world through the lens of creativity? Sort of my thing. The satisfaction of using real tools, of touching real wood cannot be replicated by Little Tyke.

When I repurposed the crib into their lego table, I had two very willing helpers.

An admitted side bonus of having them enjoy my hobby means that they are usually tolerant when I say “no, you can’t help paint with oil-based primer”. Usually.

Both of my babies slept in this crib–and my oldest starts kindergarten on Monday– but the Dropside of Death meant sending it to a landfill. Landfill? No way.

This past January, when I was deep in the swamp of kitchen cabinet painting, the boys and I did a side project on their crib.

Here– let me detail the steps:

Legos were assembled, children were happy, mom went back to being covered in white cabinet paint.

Then this started happening.

Granted if you replaced Legos with sticky notes, receipts, and pony tail holders their table looks a lot like my desk… still.

I used to feel like this each time I walked past the room.

Now, thanks to my handy Lego Storage System I:

Making Magic

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Scattermom

Making magic wands? Yeah, sure.

What adults learn from children–if they pay attention–is that the world is a magical place. That there might be monsters under the bed, or a beanstalk that grows high into the clouds. Or, if I make the environment friendly to them, laundry gnomes.

Please, please let laundry gnomes be real!

Zach has been reading since November and his skill with it still makes my brain hurt. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, it squeezes my heart in a vice and makes me all teary.

So when we started reading Harry Potter together (not that he couldn’t read it by himself– he just won’t) I began to consider all of the wonderful things I could do with my own magic wand.

Laundery gnomes

Then I saw some old chopsticks and got to thinking… which is how I ended up making the easiest DIY magic wands in the history of craft making.

Supply List for the Easiest Magic Wand:

Apply hot glue to the chopstick. Twist and twirl it– uniform perfection is NOT the goal here. Let the glue harden up just a little bit.

Add a few beads. Just a few– I did a version with more beads and it looked like a bedazzled corndog.

It was at this point that I went and looked an actual image of Harry Potter’s wand. Ahem. I mixed brown and a little black to make it streaky.

Ta-da! A epoximise spell!

This Old House

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Scattermom

This old house has seen a bunch of upgrades–some easy, some not. A corner here, a room there. Slowly it inched forward from 1969.

The poor kitchen started off with a look that only a DIYer could appreciate. We got new cabinets, and I was happy for awhile. But then I decided that the new cabinets were boring and needed to some spice.

Ah, turning the old-new into the new-new.

Insert insane cackle, since that project isn’t ahem done. Though all I have left (other than decorative touches) are the faux built-in from target bookshelves and leftover scraps hack. I plan for it to look something like:

Photo Credit: BHG

My brilliant idea for an inexpensive stainless steel backsplash is still my favorite all my DIY projects.

And I did manage to get the other set of shelves hung in the coat closet last weekend. But then I had to shove all of the misplaced stuff back in there (we needed to eat dinner). I refuse to let JB hang the door back up, because out-of-sight…

So instead I’m embracing my eclectic decorating style and making a pop-art statement about the Overload of Stuff in America–

Wait. That’s IT. I’ll just label my clutter as being an ode to Warhol and suddenly it’s a statement.

And why this montage of projects of Months Past? Because I was down in the basement– doing, yeah, laundry…

…when I started fantasizing about my perfect life. One where my hair stayed stick straight despite the humidity and I had an extra 1200 square feet of space.

Wait– I do have an extra 1200 square feet of space, but it’s not pleasant– and sometimes the dark corners are kinda scary.

If only the basement were done, everything else would be perfect. Cue my Rainbow farting unicorn, please.

Hey– who needs some baby stuff? Cloth diapers? Anyone? Bueller?

Can you see it with me?

Buh-bye to clown-vomit epoxy floor,
and also to the 1970s vintage accordion door.

No to wainscoting in shades of dark brown,
Acoustic ceiling tile? You’re first to go down.

Hello to a softly carpeted place;
to new walls creating happy-family space.

Oh– and bad poetry aside– I’m totally building this system for storage.

Trying… but Just. Can’t. Stop. Myself.

Photo credit: Family Handyman

To eliminate all of the closet over-pourage.

But before I can even think about the satisfaction of ripping out every spec of acoustic ceiling tile, I first have to finish the built-ins. And the closet. But you can watch me drool over ideas on pinterest.

Perhaps I should have FINISH IT tattooed on my forehead?

Mortal Kombat for ADHDers

How to Organize a Coat Closet

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Scattermom

This past Saturday (as in the day before Father’s Day) I decided it was time to tackle the organization of the coat closet. Mine was a simple plan to use the free closetmaid shelves that I’ve been installing in various other locations and do something about the mess.

Before: the top of the closet.

Before: the bottom of the closet.

After pulling everything out– hey look, a box of hangers– I realized that I didn’t have a real plan.

I started first with a mind map, a new skill recently acquired during a blog content planning class at Momcomm.

Yes, I included hide-n-seek as a priority need for the closet. Duh.

Next I took measurements (height, width and depth) and transferred the dimensions to my best-ever-perspective-drawing.

But then I started poking around on google and pinterest for clever configuration ideas. This, my friends, began the easy project’s downward spiral into the 5th level of home improvement hell.

Google, in its increasingly sentient–and assholish– way led me over to a blog where the homeowner turned a coat closet into a mudroom nook.

*Weep*

I’ve been suffering from mudroom envy since 2007 when the first of a million grains of sand dribbled out of Zach’s tiny shoe. But then Kim hacked mudroom built-ins and somehow I’ve turned my missing mudroom into the root of all my domestic difficulties.

So… JB returns and I, according to his version, pounce on him like he’s the nip to my cat with my Super Duper Ooper Schmooper Big Idea.

Instead of a boring coat closet with wire shelves, how about a NOOK. Everyone has a closet! We’d have a mudroom nook! It’ll be easy!

Y’all, I had him. For approximately 27 seconds.

Then this happened.

Next came the argument, the frustration, the misunderstandings and at least 4 hours of my life lost to the abyss of marital disagreement.

A sort of cranky me finished deconstruction. Off came the wooden coat rod and shelves.

Then came paint. I was tempted to use the bright green from the living room, but for the first time ever in my life I intentionally painted a room beige.

While painting non-popcorned closet ceiling, I realized that the popcorn covering the ceilings of all but three rooms in this house aren’t original. Which means that the previous owners deliberately chose to popcorn their ceilings as a… design technique?

Redneck sauna: a closet with no ventilation and bright work lights.

I’m totally over my mudroom nook plan.

I think. Maybe.

The fact that there is only one wire shelf installed does not, in any way, imply that I might be considering just going for it while he’s at work. Because that would be wrong and stuff.

DIY: Up-cycled/Re-purposed Deck Planter Box

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Scattermom

Between our fence and the house, where a sad, sagging thing called gate once lived, we now have a giant deck box planter. A rocking, upcycled, no-cost deck box planter. Of course there are flowers in it now!

Ghetto gate was removed when the boys decided on Birthday Extravaganza 2011 being a home party. I then spent the next 6 months screeching “hurry up” as Old Dog #1 looked oh-so-carefully for her special pee-pee place.

The solutions I had come up with were laughably painful. Brick and mortars walls, for example. But there is concrete under there, and I don’t want any part of a jackhammer.

Then pinterest delivered unto me a living hedge.

I’m not going to lie, I adore the stainless steel trough look. As it turns out, they are pretty damn expensive. I tried to convince JB that we could fashion something similar from flashing, or stainless steel sheeting like the kitchen backsplash, but he wasn’t buying it.

Then there was the issue of Small People and scorching hot metal all summer long.

Soooo… since I had already built a wood deck box, back in the old days–Wave hello at gestating Zach!–JB and I decided that we could use the deconstructed gate and panel to make a new box.

Almost all furniture building, starts with a basic shape (in this case a rectangle).

First you need a base.

Then you need uprights and a helper.

And some sides.

And a superhero.

Having an identity crisis.

Leftover stain. I used 3 different kinds and mixed ‘em.

But I don’t own staining gloves. What’s up with that? Ah, but I do have plastic bags.

Now I didn’t want to fill this bad boy up with dirt, because that would make it weigh more than a show pony. I also didn’t want to spend the money on containers… but I did have a perfectly sized trashcan.

That said, I didn’t want to fill the trash can up with dirt, either. Oh…gallon milk jugs that JB wanted to recycle.

And the newspaper I’ve been saving.

My mixture.

You’d never know what’s down below!

Now it’s all filled in so you can’t see the containers unless you are right on top of it. Which I can (and will) fix with landscape fabric. Eventually.

A few of the other plants.

I’m going to miss tiki man so much when he finally breaks. But 8 years off of a $5 Big Lots purchase makes me smile.

Scattermom

Continual Distraction for a Scattered Mind

Category Archives: DIY