Life is Busy... and I'm kinda bad at it.

When did life become ALWAYS busy?

I feel like this week my brain stopped functioning. Last week I had it all under control, menu planned, house CLEAN, boys entertained. And this week I am thawing out last second, struggling to get the dishwasher unloaded before the sink is full, and turning to electronic entertainment for the extra ornery boys.

How is it that one week I've got it managed like a Fortune 500 CEO and the next it's LITERALLY falling apart around me?

The good news is that the Lord loves me either way. And so does my husband, and the littles. Though only Lord knows why! But I'm not really all that worried about that, I'm worried that I am NEEDED. I NEED to be on top of this... my kids need it, my husband needs it, and emotionally I need it. I need to beat this apathy and lack of motivation. Hopefully the Lord will help with that too. 

Hype

Why is there SUDDENLY all this Mayim Bialik hype? She's been parenting this way for awhile and she blogs about it openly. Is everyone just talking about it now 'cause she has a book coming out?

Also, Portlandia... Where the dream of the nineties is alive... is ironic, in that the people who watch it/understand it probably ARE (at least slightly) it.

And if you're not watching Downton Abbey or racing to the library for your held copy of Catching Fire, you should be. But don't admit it 'cause these things are just really mainstream and super accesible. It's like being a fan of Harry Potter.... What are you 9? Please, i only read books you've never heard of that weren't respected in their time.

You know what would be crazy radical? If people starting believing good stories could be good because they reflect truth and not lies, hope and not despair. But i doubt it will ever be cool to believe in beauty... It certainly won't be intellectual or mature. Maybe grace will make a popularity comeback and love will be the new it thing.... As it is in heaven, always.

Lovin' this Etsy shop of beautiful Printable Scripture. These images are $5.00, printable in various sizes and super cute. Go, buy all her stuff, tell her I sent you and maybe she'll wanna sponsor my project...

I'm thinking of how to create an "interchangeable" frame. I wanna be able to slip beautiful things like the one below into the side of a frame, and switch them around so we're not always looking at the SAME thing. And if we had something special we were working on or thinking about, we could just switch to the applicable beautiful image.

I dunno what's going on with the images on this page! Gracious.

My Favorite Apps - or at least, my Toddlers' favorites

Before I had an ipod touch I never imagined I would let my toddler touch it, but the thing has been surprisingly durable and OH so useful. My kids LOVE the various apps.

Here are some Toddler Friendly apps that my kids love and I fully approve:

1. Angry Birds - There is just something about this app that kids LOVE. Can't explain it, but my 2 year old asks for "Ang Birds" every time he sees the ipod. And my 3 yr old actually has some decent scores.
2. Preschool Lunchbox - My kids love this little monkey. They also love getting "stickers" as rewards and both seem to "get" how the app works pretty well. VERY intuitive interface.
3. Shape-O - Easy interface puzzle game, my 3 year old loves it and has learned quite a few new words, like "Flamingo." The other game by this designer is not as big a hit (caterpillar).
4. Thomas & Friends by Callaway - We have both "Day of Diesels" and "Misty Island Rescue" and my kids love both of them. I like them 'cause they aren't just storybooks, they also have coloring pages and a matching game (memory style).
5. Peter Rabbit Pop-Out - We have this and Squirrel Nutkin on different ipods. We enjoy the fact that these are classic books about adorable animals, and my kids enjoy the pop out effects. (Note, some reviewers say this app takes up a lot of room.) These guys also make a Charlie Brown Christmas app that my 3 year old likes, but it's a bit tough for him, so I imagine a 4-year old would like it, assuming they like snoopy and charlie brown.
6. Sandra Boyton - Great kids books turned interactive. My kids particularly love the Barnyard Dance and Blue Hat, Green Hat apps. They animals are animated and some dressable, etc.
7. Another Monster at the End of This Book - Normally we don't encourage a lot of Elmo in our house; we prefer Grover. But this app is far superior to the first app (The Monster at the End of This Book). This one is very interactive and more intuitive - my kids could easily figure out how to turn pages etc. It can be a LITTLE bit frustrating for my 2 year old as there are things you have to figure out, and even my three year old can struggle sometimes, but I think they will enjoy it for a long time for that reason.
8. Fisher Price Animal Sounds - Had this app for awhile and both of my kids have enjoyed it. I think my 3.5 year old is kinda too old for it now. It is very easy to use, doesn't have a lot of "other buttons" to push and take them away from the app, etc.
9. Dr Seuss ABC's - We haven't had this long, so I can't really offer kid reviews. But I like it. We're working on the alphabet and my kids love this book, so I think it'll be good reinforcement. I am a LITTLE bit disappointed in the interactivity, but the interface is good for kiddos.
10. Talking Larry - This is not educational at all, and only works if you have a microphone on your ipod. But my kids love listening to their words spoken back to them in a crazy high pitched bird voice. They also enjoy exploding the poor little guy.

These are our top 10 apps at this point. We need a decent Winnie-The-Pooh app 'cause those guys are favorites.

I should mention that I rarely pay for apps for the kids and never pay more than $.99 an app. The ONLY exception to this has been the Dr. Seuss app which I needed for alphabet learning and travel. These apps are frequently on sale around holidays. The Dr. Seuss apps are "on sale" for $2.99 for Valentines Day and the Sandra Boyton books are frequently available for $.99 which I consider totally worth it for the amount my kids have used them.

I use Apps Fire to track apps that I am interested in and see when they go on sale. This is a free app that shows what apps are on sale in various categories (both books and education frequently have good toddler apps). You can star apps you want to track and the app will notify you when they go "on sale" or even free.

The French Chef

So, I've recently been watching Julia Child's French Chef. A show that was produced on a very low budget - in fact, wikipedia references the fact that they frequently had to auction off the meals to pay for the show they just recorded! The show is notably in black & white.... at least the parts I've watched.

This is SUCH a great show. Before I had watched any of it, I assumed that these would all be fairly complicated and ridiculous recipes using ingredients that my kitchen has never seen, much less my local rural grocery store. But "I've been sooooo wrong for sooooo long!" She cooks the most useful recipes! She is assuming that you'll be cooking for your family to eat around the table, so she is practical and down to earth. Her recipes use normal ingredients and actually (the ones I've seen so far) have had very few steps. They're only about 30 minutes of prep (more cooking time) and she always gives easy serving suggestions for "sides."

I'm sure it'll get more complicated further into the season... particularly if she's dealing with seafood. But so far the recipes seem SO useful and versatile. She frequently says things like, "Today we're using chicken, but you can also do this with beef, or lamb, or veal. But today, we'll use chicken."

There's also something sweet and fairly comfortable in her manner.... she isn't pretentious at all and she makes everything seems so easy and doable - nonchalantly pouring random amounts of oil and throwing in handfuls of herbs or salt.

Also, because of the time that it was filmed, she's always talking about new cool things like, "wire whisks" and "electric washing machines." In the episode I am currently watching she just said, "I'm using one of those No Stick 'em pans. I like them very much."

The only complaint I have so far is that she seems to use a TON of dishes! I'm sure you could cut down on the amount used, but good heavens the woman seems unconcerned with the incredible number of pots and pans she will have to wash!

I am very much looking forward to the rest of the first season.

The future

Sometime in the future I'm going to document and share instructions for this:

Testing... 1... 2... 3.

This has been a test of the mobile blogging capabilities of Blogger. Thank you.

Binders

I love binders. i LOVE binders. And pens. And Sticky Notes. And beautifully organized things. Every year I have a project binder that I start and sometimes keep up with. I've recently been inspired to create household binders (thank you pinterest). I have a work in progress Recipe Binder and a just starting up Home Management Binder. I think these will be helpful to me. I will attempt to remember to take pictures of them in their current forms before reorganizing them.

I really need a good app for helping me remember daily chores (repeated weekly) and other projects I want to work on. There needs to be an app for that. There probably already is.

Back to Blogging

Maybe this only happens after I have babies, but I have things to say to you, Void. Thoughts that want out of my brain and words that want to be used. Maybe it's spending a lot of time talking to toddlers that makes me want to express things that have little to do with them... or maybe it's thinking about them ALL the time that makes me want to share the things I've been learning.

Sometimes I feel like I am doing a lot of getting my life together. Since The Girl was born I've been trying to get my life ORGANIZED. Not like getting rid of stuff in closets (that project will never be finished) and not like cleaning everything constantly so that my house looks perfect (again, that ship has SAILED). I'm trying to set up systems of things so that there is order, not just physical order, but mental and emotional order. Stability. Reliability. Relax-ability. These are the things that my family, and my self, need.

So, while I'm working on that I sometimes want to talk about these things... so maybe this can be an outlet. Thanks for listening, Void.