Out with old stuff, in with new (places for) stuff

1. This was a week or so ago. Stuff sorted, including lots of now-empty bags (on right), trash bags (on left), sorted stuff since put away (far left and center) and WAYYY too many magazines, which are still To Be Dealt With. A big step forward with that pile o' stuff, though. 


2. Last week my husband put together the bookshelves we bought from friends (getting excited!)... 


3. Today the new shelves are in place! Please ignore the disarray throughout the living room -- I have to figure out new places for some things. It'll take me a week or two to figure out what really needs to go in these shelves. Lots of thinking and looking at what's already in the living room (four tall bookcases), and I'll explore the garage book boxes too. The chair on the right is next to the kiddos' computer desk (camouflaged by a map draped over the monitor, whoops); that won't last, I'm sure. 


4. This evening, the contents so far. Dear husband says, "What is this, game central?!?" I pulled together all of the games from throughout the house, except the large fancy Scrabble game of my husband's I discovered; it won't fit on any shelf we own! The kids' board games still fill the bottom shelf of an adjacent bookcase. I haven't even gotten books out of boxes yet, except some large-format Time-Life books that are out of sight on the bottom left shelf. This is so fun -- such possibilities for organization and enjoyment! 

Fun with kitchen gadgets

Friday evening was do-it-yourself time in the kitchen, thanks to a couple of new Tupperware gadgets we bought recently. End result: yummy homemade salsa made by dear husband, and individual chocolate milk shakes made by each son for himself. Courtesy of T-ware's hand-crank little food processor, and their venerable 16-oz shake-and-mix gadget. My husband remembers making milkshakes with his mom's back in our personal ancient times (that would be according to the kids).

I'll admit, I made myself a mini milkshake with one scoop of ice cream, a bit of milk, and a good drizzle of chocolate sauce. Everyone shook up Mommy's shake, thanks to my wrist pain lately (another blog another day). Yumyumyum! Thank you, Tupperware.

This evening I'm making guacamole, and dear husband want to try another salsa. I guess it's one way to get some of our vegetable servings for the day!

The Ultimate Frugal Haircut

For ultimate frugality in the haircutting realm, I suppose you could keep your hair long, but I really really prefer to keep my hair short. My ultimate frugal haircut is to do it myself! I've been cutting my own hair for a year, and despite moments of frustration, I'm quite pleased about doing it myself.

By short hair, I don't mean chin-length, or some sort of bob. Nope. My hair stays well above my eyebrows, above my ears, and off my neck, and I like it fairly short all over. Two inches would be great, but my DIY cuts come in around three inches all over. Also, I like the hair at the nape of my neck extremely short. When LikeWowMom mentioned cutting her own short hair, I realized there was someone else in the world who did this!

It's taken me a while to figure out how to cut my hair myself. It started with a sharp pair of hospital-origin scissors, my bangs getting in my eyes, and being too busy to get to my latest frugal haircut shop, SuperCuts (10 bucks). Last fall, with a little careful trial and error, I learned to cut my bangs and sideburns. Then I worked out how to more or less trim around my ears. But the rest of my hair kept growing and lengthening, and got to be too heavy for me. Over the months I figured out a way to lightly scissor-texture my hair, which at least kept the whole thing from becoming a "bowl" type of hairstyle.

Finally I figured out a way to scissor-texture my hair quite a lot, which created a really nice shortshort haircut. I even worked out a way to make the sides work out well, above/around my ears. My remaining struggle is how to keep the nape short. One way is to let it grow annoyingly long so I can hold it with my fingers and cut it shorter. The other is to keep on top of it and simply scissor-texture it frequently enough that none of it gets too long. I did have to give up truly shortshort hair; I can't really cut it evenly all over by myself -- as I learned by trying it -- so I texture it until it seems generally short enough. Much safer!

I cut my hair yesterday, including the whole nape thing (I'd let it get too long, but that did make it easy to cut), and today I did a bit of touch-up. It looks quite nice! Better than some of those cheap haircuts I've gotten in the past. If I put some money aside and bought some clippers, I'd be less frustrated about the nape, but still: I'm in charge of my own hair, and not victim to whatever kind of cut the shops I can afford impose on me, grrr. Freedom! Independence! A quite decent haircut for my favorite cost: $0!

Projection of progress

Early returns are projecting a bit of progress...

Heehee

Volunteer project no. 1 still has a tiny bit of wrap-up, printing and mailing a very few copies, but it's okay; I have a much better grasp of the end than I did on Tuesday!

Volunteer project no. 2 is ever so close to done. A couple of phone calls, some editing, a quick email for delivery, and that should do it.

They're both newsletters. One for my local chapter of MOMS Club (at-home moms) and the other for my statewide (really, diocesan-level) Daughters of the King organization (Episcopalian women doing prayer, service, and evangelism). I am very happy that most of the delivery is by email, with just a few receiving by postal mail. If I'm lousy at completing projects I can email, and yes, it is my weakness, I'm absolutely terrible at preparing mailings. Better to give that part to someone else. Someone to whom I can email the document!!

Project progress

One project is out the door (well, delivered via the 'net). Hurrah! Tomorrow I have some legwork to do for the other, add the finishing touches, and then it can go by email to its destination as well. Yahoo! The chocolate ice cream helped my mood, too, I must admit.

Bedtime prayer songs

Our bedtime routine as I tuck each of my sons into bed a few minutes apart is to sing some songs of their choice from our current bedtime repertoire. Songs that are prayers, parts of our church service music, or easy hymn refrains. I introduced this a few years ago when the older son began resisting bedtime prayers. Over the last month or so our younger son, age 4 1/2, has been asking lots of questions during his songs, and tonight was quite a time.

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might.
- Mommy, what's 'might'? (before I could answer) oh, that's being strong (makes strong-man arm motions)

Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
(On to our next song, which I often sing after Holy Holy Holy)

Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.
- Where is God? God is all around us (we'd talked about this before, and that was the best I could come up with!). Is Father D--- God?
[Me] No, Father D--- is a person. God is... God, and is with us all of the time.
[Son] Is God with all of the people?
[Me] Yes, God is with all of us all of the time.
[Son] God is right next to us, right?
[Me] Exactly! God is right next to every one of us.

Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks...
- Mommy, what is 'worship'?
[Me] It's giving honor; we worship, we honor... (I didn't know how to explain it off the cuff!)
[Son] (thoughtful silence, I hope)

...we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world...
- (I knew this was coming) Mommy, what is sin?
[Me] Sin is when we do what we shouldn't do, the opposite of what we really should do, what God wants us to do.
[Son] Like when people hurt someone or kill someone
[Me] That's right, or when we say or do things that hurt people
[Son] Hurt their feelings, or hit them like this (mimes hitting!). That's not good.
[Me] That's right. That's sin. We should choose what's right.

...have mercy on us; you are seated at the right hand of the Father...
- Mommy, what does that mean?
[Me] It means Jesus is in a place of honor next to God the Father. He is God too, they are God together (arrgh, what have I gotten myself into!). (Now, mindful of the next phrase in the song) Jesus hears our prayers in a special way and brings our prayers to... to God. (mumble mumble)

...receive our prayer. For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

+

I had an inkling that this song might teach my kids something of the faith, but I had no idea it might go like this -- all in just a few minutes!

By the way, our current repertoire is

• "Holy, Holy, Holy"


• "Glory to God in the Highest"


• "All Things Bright and Beautiful" refrain


• "Our Father/the Lord's Prayer" to two different tunes (published one I learned in another parish, and our current organist/choirmaster's composition)


• "The Lord Is my Shepherd, I'll Follow Him Alway"


• The children's prayer, "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless this bed I lie upon," set to a charming tune.

Each season of the church year I try out a few new songs. The songs must be fairly quick to memorize, as there's very little light at bedtime in their room, and I don't want to mess with that for the sake of reading music or words. I'm reminded that I'd like the boys to sing with me again, at least more often.

Bedtime song as catechism tonight, I guess!

Political, believe it or not

After watching the TV coverage of the Republican National Convention last night, I did something I've never done in my LIFE. I stopped at the local party headquarters and picked up yard signs for our front yard. My husband was okay with it, the several times I asked him. We'll see if we get any drive-by or walk-by "embellishment" to our signs. They are:

1. Kerry-Edwards / A Stronger America
2. (Our Democratic candidate for Senate)

It's a pretty weird feeling letting my colors show in any forum whether here, in face-to-face conversations, or in our front yard. Yet I'm a lifelong Democrat and voter.

And that's all I'll say about that. Other than:

— Exercise your hard-won right and VOTE —