Downton Abbey

I’m a little late to the bandwagon here, but I usually am because we don’t have cable. If it hits Netflix, I can see it. If it doesn’t, then I don’t.

The last few days I’ve been walking around saying stuff in a fancy British accent, which admittedly is getting a lot better since I seem to be obsessing over a lot of British TV as of late. I’ve even been practicing using the word “fortnight” in my head, and actually drinking cups of tea. Naptime, Downton Abbey, and a hot cuppa. Mmhmm.

So I can’t say much that probably has not already been said or thought of about this series, but it is a gem.  I think my recent Call The Midwife discovery had me thirsty for more, having thoroughly explored my former British TV obsessions.

I have for a long time worshiped Absolutely Fabulous, and anything with Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, and Martin Clunes. There are others too, such as the short-lived comedy Faulty Towers, which my husband turned me on to back when we had time to watch TV on the couch and kick it together, whenever we wanted.

So really only having experience with English comedy, my excitement for DA and CTM  is probably a little over the top.

But, apparently my love for Downton Abbey does not rest in solitude.

This is a video my dad made, his rendition of the theme song in solo piano. (A wonderful tribute, if I do say so myself.)

The first episode I found a bit slow to engage in, and it took me a few tries to finish it. At first I found myself immediately disliking the family and siding with the servant staff, but as time goes on I see sides of almost everyone that I can relate to. It really is quality writing for television. I think that might be where my obsession for British TV is coming from lately, since I’m somewhat tired of the dull network shows lately.

Anyway, just my chance to pimp my pops and one of my new favorite shows.

Cheers!

Air Mail

I recently participated in a mail art swap where the theme was airmail.

Since I had no actual air mail envelopes, I made my own using airmail-style washi tape. The stickers on the front are also tapes, just cut down to look like stickers and stamps.I also used a few postal themed rubber stamps for the final touch. So far one partner has received and she liked it.

Here is one I got in the mail…still waiting for the other one to roll in.

I really enjoyed the postage stamps she used. The rubber stamps are also very cool. I like the gypsy saying!

“We are all wanderers on this earth. Our hearts are full of wonder and our souls are deep with dreams.”

Call The Midwife

Usually during nap time I indulge in a little TV. Sometimes it’s reruns, sometimes Ellen or Dr. Phil, sometimes a series. This week, it’s Call The Midwife, a recently new (2011, I think) British series based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth.

Set in the 1950s, the series focuses on Jenny Lee and her nurse-midwife colleagues, living and tending to patients in London’s impoverished East End neighborhood. The women live in a nursing convent, deliver babies, save lives, lose lives, and take care of each other. While childbirth is the calling for all of these women, the plot is not centered only on the fleeting relationships of the nurses with their patients. There are other threads in the plot that give this series the soap-opera like effect that makes you want to keep tuning in.

It really is a charming series with lots of emotion and heart. I found it on Netflix on Sunday and I only have one more episode left until I can start on the second season, which apparently Premiered on PBS here in America on March 31. Be warned, though, that it’s a tear jerker. I watched episode five yesterday and was sobbing by the end, it was so sad yet so sweet. The writers of this one really do a phenomenal job.

Go. Enjoy. The babies, the clothes, the English accents, all of it!

Mini Paper Baskets For Easter (or anytime, really)

Happy Easter!

Today’s the day the big bunny made his rounds. Plastic egg shells, jelly beans and paper grass cover the living room floor. It is an explosion of treats and loot, second only to Christmas.

And, then, just as quickly as I hid the eggs and basket last night, it’s all found and it’s all over.

Except for these.

I love all things miniature and I also love all things paper. Wanting to continue the crafting and planning surprises for the Big Day, I found this lovely template over at Waltzing Mouse Stamps for a little square Easter basket.

And because at 30-somethin’ it is still fun to get a basket from my mom, er, the EB…which I found outside my back door this morning (Thanks ma!), I thought surely it must be fun for Grandma and Grandpa to get one too. So I made these.

Just print the template on cardstock, cut, and glue. Filled with chocolate eggs or jelly beans they make a perfect little gift.

Also, this is great for last minute basket needs. Takes only a few minutes to put together and fill.

Better go hop along the rest of my bunny trail!

Mail Art

Lately I’ve been doing some mail art. By lately I mean for the last year or so. I think I’m a lot happier when I am doing something artistic and creative on some level so I decided to take up this hobby.

Mostly I just make fancy envelopes and send them out to mail art calls and swaps that I’ve signed up for. Here’s an example:

But last year I found this wonderful blogger and her 13 ounces or less series. Basically, any thing that is less than13 ounces you can affix postage and a label to and drop it in a mailbox. There are lots of examples of what you can send, like a frisbee or flip flops. In particular, I found this post about mailing plastic eggs, and I was hooked. The mail artist in me was born.

I actually sent my niece an egg for Easter last year and had every intention of blogging about it. But, I didn’t. And…I lost the pictures I had of it.

So I decided to start all over and send some more eggs this year.

I was actually not very inspired to make these until just this morning. I sort of had it in the back of my mind to send my niece another egg, even though she is a tween and maybe too “cool” for this kind of thing anymore. But I was at Party City today looking for tiny egg fillers for my son’s little egg hunt I like to do, and I found the piece de resistance.

A moustache lip balm. In peppermint. Two of my niece’s favorite things of the moment. Perfect.

And I figured while I was at it, I’d get a couple of these cute Hello Kitty lip gloss necklaces they had and do some for my friend’s daughters.

And here they are, all taped up with postage and ready to be mailed.

There is still time to do this for any long-distance little ones (or big ones) you might know! For each small egg it cost $2.07 in postage. The larger egg was $2.58 but I had a few extra cents on there because I couldn’t find my two-cent stamps.

You can get postage prices at the USPS website with their handy dandy Postal Calculator.

Happy Mailing!

 

 

 

It’s Always a Mom-petition

Seriously. Aren’t we all on the same team here? Why are we always comparing each other in terms of experience?

Classic examples usually involve stay at home moms with working moms, with moms who work out of the home saying they in fact do MORE than anyone. The main argument is that they not only work, but eventually come home to clean and cook and be primary caregiver. I get it, I really do, and the thought of working 50 hours a week while this one is little makes me sick with rage at the thought of not having a single iota of help at all with the housework on top of kissing some Manager’s ass in some shithole office somewhere for eight hours a day. No thanks. So I can empathize. This is when mandatory girl’s night out get scheduled in, monthly weekly and Wine-O-The-Month Club gets a premium membership. Also, this is when the Dear Husband gets a chore chart of his very own. So I will agree that staying home with the kid(s) is probably the lesser of two evils, so to speak.

But that is an argument for another day.  It’s become evident that it is also a big competition regarding the actual number of children you have.

As a mother of a singleton, I don’t really have a leg to stand on if I wanted to argue for mothers of more than one. Thankfully, I am not trying to compete. I just want to be able to commiserate with a fellow mother without someone inevitably butting in and being all “oh honey, try it with 19 running around” or “you don’t know what sleepless is until there are 98368 trips up in the middle of the night, instead of your usual 5.”

Don’t we all long for the chance to go to the bathroom alone?

Don’t we all eat secret Oreos because, sometimes, we just don’t feel like sharing?

Don’t we all wish to sleep past 8:00am on a Saturday, once again, like the days of yore when you had a wicked hangover from dancing your ass off the night before and drinking snakebites until 4am?

Don’t we all want to clobber Barney with a plastic baseball bat and tell Caillou to STFU?

Sure, life is more chaotic with more children, but that does not make us mothers of singletons any LESS worthy of parenthood. And that means all the gripes and stress that come with parenting–whether you are doing it with one or 11.

STOP being smug. STOP acting as if this is a huge game. It’s life. We are all parents here. Let’s start acting like the grown ups and not the kids.

I’ll Take A Twin Mattress and a Dishwasher. Thanks.

If Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.

Doesn’t this statement make things seem like everyone should be trying to help the Mama?
That Mama should be able to take time for herself, beyond the ONE time a day she gets to pee alone, which is usually after bed time?

Because a balanced Mama is a happy one.

Who came up with this slogan? A man? Because in my world, it’s more like If Mama doesn’t get a time out for herself in exactly 3.2 seconds, her head will explode.

And I don’t have time for that shit.

8:00am. Wake up. Make coffee, change diaper, make a breakfast-something for the Bubba.

9:00am. Say goodbye to DH for the day. Sometimes this includes driving him to the train.

9:15am. Make lists of things I need to do that will never get done. Keep trying to get the kid to eat his breakfast. Start the previous night’s dishes.

10:00am. Try to keep the Bubba busy while I keep doing other things (DISHES, mainly. A dishwasher would probably help. A big screw you to everyone who has one. YOU SUCK.)

10:15-10:30ish. See what my parents are up to. Hope my dad will take the Bubba for a while.

11:00-1:00. Bubba hangs out and has lunch with Grandma and Grandpa while I either clean the bathroom, pick up everyone else’s shit, vacuum, mop, put everyone else’s shit away, do laundry, or go grocery shopping. Many times this two hours is taken up by more than one two of these chores.

1:00-3:00ish. Hopefully at this point the Bubba is napping. Start preparing dinner if necessary (I love my Crock Pot), finish up any chores, work on miscellaneous family admin stuff like bills, doctors appointments, etc. Pick up toys. Possibly shower, time permitting.

3:30-5:00pm. Play with Bubba. Try to multi-task: for example, sitting while he plays with Legos and I fold laundry. Fold laundry 9862 times because Bubba thinks it’s a big game to mess up what Mama has just done. Give up and just leave heaps of clean clothes in miscellaneous laundry baskets around the apartment.

5:00ish. Listen to Garry Meier on WGN as I cook dinner or attend to my already cooking dinner. Figure out what to make for Bubba to eat if we are having something he won’t like. Listen to a lot of whining about me not being able to play and repeatedly step on every matchbox car we have while trying to not burn the food.

6:00pm. Wait and hope that DH is on his way home from work. Feed Bubba.

6:30pm. Pick DH up from train if I have driven him there, or wait for his arrival.

7:00pm. Eat dinner in silence on two separate couches while the Bubba plays with trains and picks at his food here and there which sits on the table forever otherwise he will wither away to nothing. (I hear that some kids are actually capable of sitting at a table and eating their dinner. HAHAHA not at my house)

7:30pm. Watch some TV, maybe, hopefully, a (PG rated prime-time) show that is NOT child-centric. (How sad that I am now hoping for a chance to watch some gross ABC-family sitcom.) Bubba runs around like a maniac and I sporadically try to corral toys to their appropriate spots.

8:00pm. Bathtime. DH usually sits these out, so while Ben is in the tub I might text a friend or check Facebook. It’s all about multitasking!

8:30pm. Wind down. Brush teeth. Read stories. If DH does this I might have some time for a shower, reading, writing, looking at Facebook or in general just wasting time on the couch until I have to start the waiting-for-sleep-ritual.

9:00pm-12:00am. Put child to bed. Hope for sleep. Listen to the light switch on the lamp go on and off for a while. Listen to giggles and jumping on the bed. Intermittent spurts of crying ensue and randomly check to see if I can console him.

12:15am and beyond. Eventually fall asleep in nursery on floor. Wake up around 3AM to snoring from my own bedroom. Roll over and try to go back to sleep on my numb arms and hips… so I can do it all again tomorrow.

So if anyone out there is willing to gift me a mattress and an appliance, email me. We can work it out.