Under Construction

Fishing Theme Birthday Party Invitations

 

Every year I seem to remember anew that I really like planning theme birthday parties. Just like my mom except with more emphasis on the cake and food and less pre-planning and organization. This year the boys-of-the-family birthday party theme is....fishing. The invitation idea is 100% stolen from Pinterest with the addition of some inappropriate puns by Mr. H and I. The party is this weekend and, honestly, the invites are the only thing done. And these week is crazy busy with baseball (two games for Oscar) and band (Biscuit performing at a minor league baseball game) and celebrations (new house for the in laws, birthday for a friends). So, yeah. Who knows when the rest of the party planning will happen! And it doesn't help that I uncovered a love for Swedish Fish and have just now polished off the entire bag that was purchased specifically for party/cake decor. Oops.

Notes on the invite. The vest is a paper grocery bag with the printed invite covering the grocery store logo. The fish were cut out of an old science book. The hook is a bent piece of wire (but a cut paper clip would have worked great) with a snipped off bit of a feather tied on with thread. I should have cut the neck of the vest higher as the text ended up showing so I had to add the green paper which doesn't look as good as I'd hoped. It was good it's just a family party because 6 was just about as many of these as I could handle making. Oscar's friend party was an evite.

Blurry photo so, the fish themed wording in case you can't read it:

Hope we can LURE you over for a REEL good time. 

Our CAST of characters.

THE FISH WILL BE BITING around 4

Bring your BASS on over just for the HALIBUT (probably not appropriate for a 7 year old but oh well)

If you'll TAKE THE BAIT, please RSVP...

Spreading the 'wealth'

I was so encouraged and inspired by the comments in Swistle's post about "Doing Good with Money" that it's really got me thinking about my own philanthropy. Now, you'd think since I'm an actual fundraiser I'd think about this all the time but to be honest, most of the donors I work with are very wealthy and making very large gifts that seem completely unattainable to me. On the other hand I'm a total believer in making a small gift and 'doing my part' in the theory that if we all did our part for all the causes we believed in it would make an enormous difference. So I'm a member of my local public radio station and I have payroll deduct supporting the organization I work and fundraise for but I don't do a ton else.

But! We're just now all of a sudden at a point in our lives where we aren't paying for daycare or college and whoa that's nice. We also don't have a car payment nor any enormous house projects. So there really is a bit of ease in the budget to chip in. But! I'm honestly, naturally, a cheapskate. But! I hate shopping. While some women would be up late at night surfing the web finding shoes I can surf the web and find charities. But! I really actually probably should find some shoes I can wear to work without embarrassment.

Anyway! I finally did chip in for three things:

The Rohinga crisis in Myanmar. This particular genocide/tragedy/horror has really struck home for me for no real reason. Horrifying things happen all over all the time but I've followed this a bit in the media (Pod Save the World did an episode on it a while ago) and I've just felt totally useless yet stressed out. So I'm very grateful that Brandon of Humans of New York is there documenting the almost-impossible-to-read stories of these refugees. He's set up a Go Fund Me .

In a completely different vein at a conference I met folks from the Marin Fibershed who are trying to create a regional fibershed  that they are saying is climate beneficial. I'm a bit skeptical about the climate change aspects but I LOVE the idea. The fibershed (like a watershed , a region) is mostly wool in our area--there is lots of cotton in CA but not in our part of CA. Anyway, in the Sacramento area a veteran is taking old milling equipment and milling the wool (and some cotton) into fabric. I follow him on Instagram and I love seeing the old machines and the textiles coming off the mill. I'm hoping to get to tour soon but in the meantime I backed their Kickstarter to stay in their current location.

And finally, I became a patron, via Patreon, for two of my favorite podcasts The Nuanced Life and Pantsuit Politics. I just want to support what those ladies are doing.

Looking at this list I'm struck by the fact that none of these 'gifts' are actually tax deductible charitable contributions. But they're all in my mental "donations" category because they're investments, without much/any direct reward in causes I want to support.

 

PS Photo is totally unrelated but that's an entire field of carrots. Half harvested, half not.  And I got to see a carrot harvester in action. Which is a really cool thing :)

Project associations

I'm snuggled in bed planning on adding a bit more hand quilting to the quilt I'm making for my new nephew. I decided to take my time and enjoy making it so it's got lots of hand done details. I've been quilting this thing through the Winter Olympics, several episodes of Designated Survivor (why did I start that one? addictive), several episodes of Alias (not as good as I remembered) and tonight I've got on deck the podcast Slow Burn which has been recommended highly by my latest favorite podcast Pantsuit Politics (and their other show The Nuanced Life). Anyway, as I snuggled in to quilt I thought of the Winter Olympics and how a few Winter Olympics ago I knit a single small washcloth. I wonder where that went? It may have been my first successful knitting. My second was a full size baby blanket for Oscar knit almost entirely poolside the year Biscuit was on the swim team in Kindergarten. 

The quilt I'm under was started as a gift for Mr. H when we were dating and worked on sloooowly over years but I strongly remember putting in all the ties on the floor of our living room with my friend Donna. And so it goes with the media/place association. I guess that's one of the things I like about making things, all the embedded memories.

Yeah the photo is not the right direction. Honestly, uploading photos to Typepad from this PC (our 11 year old Mac finally gave up) is one of my (many) excuses for not blogging. Lame but true.

Project associations

I'm snuggled in bed planning on adding a bit more hand quilting to the quilt I'm making for my new nephew. I decided to take my time and enjoy making it so it's got lots of hand done details. I've been quilting this thing through the Winter Olympics, several episodes of Designated Survivor (why did I start that one? addictive), several episodes of Alias (not as good as I remembered) and tonight I've got on deck the podcast Slow Burn which has been recommended highly by my latest favorite podcast Pantsuit Politics (and their other show The Nuanced Life). Anyway, as I snuggled in to quilt I thought of the Winter Olympics and how a few Winter Olympics ago I knit a single small washcloth. I wonder where that went? It may have been my first successful knitting. My second was a full size baby blanket for Oscar knit almost entirely poolside the year Biscuit was on the swim team in Kindergarten. 

The quilt I'm under was started as a gift for Mr. H when we were dating and worked on sloooowly over years but I strongly remember putting in all the ties on the floor of our living room with my friend Donna. And so it goes with the media/place association. I guess that's one of the things I like about making things, all the embedded memories.

Yeah the photo is not the right direction. Honestly, uploading photos to Typepad from this PC (our 11 year old Mac finally gave up) is one of my (many) excuses for not blogging. Lame but true.

Loving, lately

Hmm, all the good intentions and desire to document yet it's been pretty quiet on ye olde blog. I'm loving using Instagram to mark memories I want to keep. I print all the photos in books using Chatbooks. They arrive every 60 photos and it's the most perfect scrapbooking system I've ever found.

Other stuff I've loved lately:

• Staying up late embroidering and hand quilting a gift for my new nephew.
• MY NEW NEPHEW (who apparently looks like a baby me. Which is only fair since Biscuit looked just like my sister). I need to go snuggle him some more!
• Oscar's delight in Christmas ornaments. He's honestly a bit greedy about it but as someone who loves to pull out ornaments each year and remember who gave them to me, who made them or what trip they commemorate I am all in on supporting his greedy love. We made little wood trains/cars/boats, salt and cinnamon dough cut outs and still need to make some walnut babies. He is also now taking over my/my mom's giant collection of Hallmark's Frosty Friends ornament series.
• Biscuit's developing skills as a chef. This is her current career of choice. I really need to find a restaurant that will take on a 12 year old dishwasher/host/whatever. Anyone know anyone?
• Watching TV while staying up late. I loved the movies Arrival and The Big Sick and binged on Designated Survivor (don't judge). I'm not usually a TV person so this is fun
• Getting back into shape with Biscuit as my coach. In October she coached me through what amounted to a couch to 5K work out. Very humbling since going out and running three miles used to be pretty easy even if it had been a while. Then I got sick for a lot of December and now it's once again humbling to get back to where I was this time last month. Still, 12 year old coaches are very encouraging.
• Cadette Girl Scouts. Honestly, so much better than the cute little daisies and brownies. You make a suggestion or two and they're off. No leader needed.
• My book club with no assigned reading. Another member recommended "Untangled" about parenting pre-teen and teenage girls and I'm finding it very insightful.
• Our new coffee maker. We splurged and gave each other a Miele espresso maker thing for Christmas. Mr. H did a lot of carpentry to build it into our kitchen and it looks perfect. Any coffee beverage you can think of at the press of a button. So fun. Come over for coffee.

Ok, I think the broke the ice. Maybe I'll be around more often. Happy 2018!

Surprise!

Biscuit is 12! Those of you following along for a while may recall she was once a few months old. She's in 7th grade and Mr. H and I agreed that it was time she got a real phone. She's had an iPod touch for several years but that only works on wifi and it's super convenient for us to be able to reach her and everyone else has a phone. So a few weeks ago we surprised her with an iPhone (lucky girl!) and told her that was it from us for her birthday. She was totally cool with that. We'll have a little joint family party later in the month and her Grammy was going to take her to to mall to buy a few clothes so she was set.

But then we decided to go for it and throw a surprise party. She's wanted one for a while and timing seemed good so we went for it.

The cover story with Grammy was already set. Grammy would pick her up for a shopping spree but, unknown to Biscuit, when they went to grab lunch in the food court her friends would be there. I spent weeks casually quizzing her about who she had lunch with and any new friends. Junior high brings a lot of new people/friendships which is great but made it hard to know who to invite. She tells me I did okay ;) For the parents I knew, I sent them an evite. For the new friends, I stole their cell numbers off Biscuit's phone and texted them myself asking for their parents' contact info to send the evites. And it worked! The 'fancy' mall is about 20ish minutes from our house so we offered to drive the girls there and back or they could meet us there. Here's how it went down.

After bedtime Saturday night: make and frost cake, hide it on top of the washing machine. I made the coconut cake from Barefoot Contessa. It was great but less almond extract next time.

9:30: I went to run 'errands' and picked up balloons and some party hats, plates and candles. Hid them in the garage.

10:30: Biscuit gets picked up by Grammy. In an added wrinkle/surprise/lucky situation my parents spent Saturday night at our place having been evacuated from the horrible fires in Santa Rosa. Fortunately it appears their home is going to be okay! As far as Biscuit knew, shopping was still a go and off she went with Grammy while the rest of us finished breakfast.

10:30-11 Run around packing the car (don't forget a knife for the cake or forks, found some crepe paper etc)

11-11:20 Five girls arrived. A few panicked texts to connect with parents (one cancellation, one person unexpectedly meeting at the mall not our house)

11:30 Pile into the suburban with Oscar left at home with his other grandparents (very convenient!)

11:35 Realize Suburban has an exhaust leak, return home, switch cars, text Grammy that surprise is moved back to 12:15. Text friends meeting at mall to grab a table.

Noon: arrive at mall. Twist crepe paper, hand out hats, candles in cake, text Grammy we're ready

12:15 Biscuit walks up, is totally surprised and instantly bursts into tears. Success!

12:20 Hand out money to each girl (we settled on $20 per girl which my cheap self was sort of dying over, $10 seemed better but lunch with a drink would have been close to $10 and $15 was hard to get change and $20/girl--$160-- was still cheaper than renting a bounce house or a party at a place so I rolled with it). Every single girl got Panda Express and scarfed it down. So much for all the options of the food court. They kept their change to shop with.

1 pm Girls head out to shop being too full for cake. We tell them to be back at 2. Grammy, Mr. H and I hang out, keep the table, eat our lunches and catch up.

2 pm Girls return having bought bath bombs from Lush and cheap stuff from Daiso. Many complaints that it wasn't nearly enough time (it wasn't) but we move on to singing and cake

2;25 Depart mall despite sadness about shortness of visit

3ish Return girls to their homes at promised time.

Notes: We really should have allowed more time at the mall--probably two hours. Evite worked great (you can text or email the invite). Biscuit has really sweet friends. It was great to have a surprise party not at home as we didn't need to really clean/decorate thus arousing suspicion. And it was totally easy as we didn't have to plan any activities! Despite saying "no gifts" most girls brought a little something so then it got a bit awkward. But everyone played it cool. No gifts is definitely the way to go for the modern, well off pre-teen. 

A few photos. The "surprise" photos were totally back lit due to windows. Bummer. But the girls were nice and let me take a few group shots.

Happy Birthday, Biscuit!

Less lazy

I have been trying (with mixed results) to be less lazy. Nothing dramatic, I'm not back to running marathons. It's more like "picking up the random piece of paper lying in the middle of the floor rather than stepping over it for days" kind of less lazy.

I have been (if I do say so myself) quite successful at:

• keeping my car tidy. I bring in all the random car junk after every trip! and don't leave trash in the car! and make the kids bring their stuff in too! My car still needs a wash but at least there aren't piles of crap in the footwells. This has been going on for months and as a messy car person I am very pleased with myself
• replacing toilet paper rolls. I was totally that person who put a fresh roll sideways on top of the empty tube. I have reformed. (Mr. H is likely very pleased, he is an excellent toilet paper replacer)
• taking out the trash/recycling before it's totally overflowing.
• Picking up random stuff on the floor rather than stepping over it.
• Watering my indoor plants more consistently

Things I am getting better at but have not achieved perfection

• shutting doors/gates
• dealing with mail (junk mail!) promptly
• turning off lights
• bringing in trash cans promptly
• cleaning up a project when I'm done (honestly, finishing a project rather than leaving it half done would be the real accomplishment)

Things I am completely failing at

• Keeping the kitchen tidy (I cook a lot! and, luckily, Biscuit loves to clean the kitchen!)
• Making the bed
• rewinding the clothes line after use
• folding/putting away clean clothes promptly 
• ok, I need to stop or I will get depressed

The above photo illustrates a completed project. Yes, it did take over the dining room for the better part of two weeks but, it's done! and the extra cardboard has been recycled and the other tools have been put (ok, tossed) back in the craft room. Oscar is very pleased to have some of his own art on his wall. The adjacent wall is similarly framed art made by Biscuit when she was five and she and I were working on his nursery. Time flies.

Less lazy

I have been trying (with mixed results) to be less lazy. Nothing dramatic, I'm not back to running marathons. It's more like "picking up the random piece of paper lying in the middle of the floor rather than stepping over it for days" kind of less lazy.

I have been (if I do say so myself) quite successful at:

• keeping my car tidy. I bring in all the random car junk after every trip! and don't leave trash in the car! and make the kids bring their stuff in too! My car still needs a wash but at least there aren't piles of crap in the footwells. This has been going on for months and as a messy car person I am very pleased with myself
• replacing toilet paper rolls. I was totally that person who put a fresh roll sideways on top of the empty tube. I have reformed. (Mr. H is likely very pleased, he is an excellent toilet paper replacer)
• taking out the trash/recycling before it's totally overflowing.
• Picking up random stuff on the floor rather than stepping over it.
• Watering my indoor plants more consistently

Things I am getting better at but have not achieved perfection

• shutting doors/gates
• dealing with mail (junk mail!) promptly
• turning off lights
• bringing in trash cans promptly
• cleaning up a project when I'm done (honestly, finishing a project rather than leaving it half done would be the real accomplishment)

Things I am completely failing at

• Keeping the kitchen tidy (I cook a lot! and, luckily, Biscuit loves to clean the kitchen!)
• Making the bed
• rewinding the clothes line after use
• folding/putting away clean clothes promptly 
• ok, I need to stop or I will get depressed

The above photo illustrates a completed project. Yes, it did take over the dining room for the better part of two weeks but, it's done! and the extra cardboard has been recycled and the other tools have been put (ok, tossed) back in the craft room. Oscar is very pleased to have some of his own art on his wall. The adjacent wall is similarly framed art made by Biscuit when she was five and she and I were working on his nursery. Time flies.

#letsgoeclipse

Like the rest of America I got a good case of eclipse fever. This was 100% caused by an episode of the podcast Every Little Thing (which I love). So I made plans for our family to stay with friends in Bend, Oregon (about 40 miles from totality) with a vague plan to drive into totality Monday morning. Through a series of events and circumstances it ended up being just me and Oscar heading to the eclipse and we went to Salem rather than Bend.

It was a great mother-son road trip! Since it was just me and the little guy with no schedule beyond 10:15 am on Monday for the eclipse we did a lot of googling "things to do with kids in X city" and found some winners in Eugene and Salem. It was so fun to be part of what felt like a national enthusiasm for the eclipse and Salem was totally set up for it. The Salem Children's Museum was amazing. The Kitchen on Court Street in Salem was great (as recommended by the Children's Museum staff). Random strangers were awesome and fun. The church that offered camping sites was super organized with wonderful volunteers. Then Salem topped it off with perfect clear, blue skies and lovely weather! The traffic right after the eclipse was spectacularly bad (5 hours to go 60 miles!) but Oscar was an awesome traveler and I'm so glad I went. If you follow me on Instagram you've already seen WAY too much of this trip. But in case not, photos. BTW when we were packing Thursday night I posted a photo with the hashtag #letsgoeclipse and I think there were about 12 posts on that hashtag. By Monday night there were over a million. Crazy, huh? 

I strategically chose a campsite right by the big cross so I would always be able to find it. It worked! Funny enough they forgot to light up the cross during totality.

Walmart was sold out of souveniers when we were there to buy supplies for our pinhole viewer but they let us have the box (aka stuffed animal bed). 

If you ask him, Camp Putt in Eugene was the trip highlight and the eclipse was just a random thing that also happened.

Photos didn't work but my sister was screen shotting the NASA live feed from Salem which looked exactly like real life.

As a state capitol resident (Sacramento) it was fun to visit another state capitol (Salem) but that is one weird capitol building.

eclipse oreos ;)

Lego birthday party for the boys (plus extra celebrations for Mr. 6)

We've got a bit of a tradition going that the boys on my side of the family (well, at least my husband, father and son) get a themed joint birthday party celebration in during their mutual birthday week. Hard to believe this is party number SIX! (Links to party one, two, three, four, and five)

I forgot to blog it at the time (in early June!) but figured better late than never. As usual, I had fun with the details on this party. Just google "Lego party" and ALL the ideas come up. I stole several ideas.

I guess I forgot to take a photo of the legos in the bathroom soap dispenser filled with clear hand soap. They're actually still in there :)

*what happens to a family photo when there are too many cameras

In addition to gifts and cake and food we spent some quality time applying metallic temporary tattoos from the dollar store. Those were a hit. 

And as if the family bash wasn't enough, Oscar had a friend party thanks to my mom who bought a birthday package at a local gymnastics place at the school auction. Shout out to Tricks Gymnastics-they were fantastic to work with. I personalized the party just a teeny bit by making balloon animals.

AND because two big parties isn't enough, Oscar had a very low key little recognition on his actual birthday when we were camping at Lake Tahoe with his cousins who couldn't come to his main party. So of course another cake made perfect sense ;)