It’s been a while since I’ve cobbled together a lumpy pillow that roughly looks like a stuffed animal. I used to do it all the time. In fact, when I was little, many of my daydreams centered around the day that I would finally own my own sewing machine and then I could make anything I wanted. I envisioned a whole world out of stuffed material. There would be trees made of green calico and brown felt bears with black pleather noses… I would make a whole forrest of animals!

Then I grew up and realized that sewing is hard and it takes entirely too much time. However, I did buy a sewing machine when I got old enough and I’ve made the odd lumpy pillow over the years.

So when Bug came to me dressed in a brown flowered skirt and the only brown t-shirt she could find (that happened to have pieces of cake on it) and explained that she was a forrest girl and all she needed to complete her pretend world was a pet owl that she couldn’t find one anywhere in her vast (and I mean vast) collection of stuffed animals, I hesitated. It was true. She has every animal under the sun I think but she does not have an owl. Octopus, check. Ferret, check. Owl: no dice.

At first I rolled my eyes at her and told her to just imagine one or to find some other forrest animal to play with. I’m sure the Forrest Girl would be friends with all the animals. As she ran off, slightly distressed, to look one more time inside her hedgehog for some sad sorry owl substitute, I gazed over at my new clean work table and my stack of folders representing all the jobs I’ve got going on right now and sighed heavily. Then I decided that I would much rather make a stuffed owl than attend to my many deadlines. Blast it. Life is short. I should make an owl, I thought.

I hauled out my banker’s box full of odd bits of fabric and called Bug over to help me pick something owlish. She was beside herself excited of course. The prospect of making an owl, from fabric with mommy’s sewing machine! She hadn’t even thought of that. This was probably a bit foolish on my part because now she’s going to be thinking I can make anything she sets her heart on at the drop of a hat.

I’m sure I’ll soon cure her of that.

Anyway, she picked some red velvet for the body, some orange raw silk for feet and a beak and we found some buttons for eyes. I was going to use that brown corduroy for wings but like all my sewing projects, it got simplified in the end. I’m not that amazing at sewing.

I did, however, have a fantastic idea for the feet. What if I sewed the raw silk around some pipe cleaners so they could bend like real talons?!! I didn’t sew tiny claw tubes and then turn them inside out or anything. That would be madness. No, I just sewed seams around the pipe cleaners, cut off the excess and let the raw edges fray. The owl would have floppy-feathered* feet like real owls do.

It actually worked really well.

With Bug hovering at my side, I sewed up the owl body, snipped the edges, turned him inside out and let Bug stuff him. I stuck the bendy feet inside the body where the stuffing hole was and sewed him closed with a kiss and prayer.

And that is how Owly (or Velvie, as Bug calls him) became the floppy-feathered owl that hangs upside down from branches. So his bendy feet aren’t strong enough to hold up his own stuffed-with-fluff weight. That’s okay. He’s still cute. (Maybe I should try that trick with a bat next time.)

And she loves him.

I’m not really sharing this story so you can say, Oh, wow you’re such a great seamstress! (snort.) or Oh, Brenda, you’re such a great mom. Because I’m not. I like to put pictures up that make me look like I’m doing a half-way decent job but really, I’m just like every other mom on the planet nagging and yelling and failing everyday at motherhood. I should share the humiliating jacket story that happened the other day. Ugh. It was terrible.

Okay I’ll just share a little bit: I thought I’d teach Bug a lesson about not getting ready fast enough in the morning by making her wear an ugly jacket to school. It wasn’t even an ugly jacket but she hates it with a white hot passion which drives me crazy because I think it’s a perfectly nice jacket and it’s cozy and warm. I can’t stand seeing her shivering in the cold on the playground when she has a perfectly good jacket to wear but she’s too vain to put it on. It’s big, I’ll give her that and I guess the kids don’t like wearing things baggy these days or something but sheesh! The battles we have over that stupid jacket some mornings make me want to wave a white flag and tear up my mom card.

So she made me mad one morning like she often does by not getting dressed and not getting her shoes on and just generally goofing off and being a normal six-year-old. I lost my temper and said, That’s IT! You’re wearing the ugly jacket and you are going to learn a lesson. You’re going to learn to get ready quickly because you never know what punishments might await you around the corner if you don’t take Mommy’s nagging seriously, rant, rant, rant.

As you probably predicted by knowing Bug from past posts I’ve written about her, she didn’t get over it. There were tears all the way to school. How could I make her look so hideous, she cried. All the kids weren’t going to like her. It was a tragedy. Weeping and gnashing of teeth…So sad, so terrible…

I was tough about this lesson all the way to school. I would not let her win. But when we got to school and I looked down at this little two-foot person standing next to me in the giant purple coat that she hates so much with tears streaming down her cheeks silently; I was a mess. How could I do this to her? She was going to be humiliated all day and what would she learn from it? That her mom is mean and has no taste in coats? At the same time how could I let her niggle out of this punishment without teaching her that crying and throwing fits works like magic? It’s the eternal parental predicament I find myself in. You just want to make them happy but you don’t want them to grow up like spoiled brats either.

So we sat on the wall outside of her school like we often do when we are a little bit early and soaked up the sun. She’d stopped crying and had finally accepted her fate. I was just tired and wanted to hold her close to me because I feel that way when I drop her off at school. I feel like I’m missing something when she’s gone from me and it makes me sad all day until I get to pick her up. I like to hug her and squeeze her and blow kisses and do all the mushy embarrassing things that mom’s do when they’re dropping off kindergarteners. I know she won’t let me do it much longer so I treasure it.

And as we sat there in the bright winter sun, I felt a little warm. It wasn’t that cold actually. It was warm enough to take our jackets off really. So I took her jacket off and stuffed it in her backpack just in time for her to run to the gate as the bell rang. Did she learn the lesson that I wanted to teach her? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever know. All I know is that this parenthood gig kicks me in the butt on a regular basis.

That and pipe cleaners make pretty good beak bones.

*floppy-feathered is what Bug says when she can’t pull her tights all the way up and the loose feet where her feet should be flop around when she walks.

So you guys wanted to see the author shots that Anna took of me. I have a TON of them so I’m just going to plaster this post with all of them! I’m a little embarrassed to have such a me me me post but I figure it’s better to get it over with all at once and maybe you guys can help me pick the best ones that I should use in my books and bios and such—and can you help me write that bio while you’re at it? I’m so stuck.

These are from the day we went to Palm Springs. I love Palm Springs. So dry and clear and then there’s this gigantic mountain that shoots straight up into the sky. I always like to live next to something that is BIG. Ocean, mountain…just something to give me a sense of direction. Put me in Bakersfield or the rolling hills of Texas and I’m completely lost.

Of course Bug came with us and she stole the show from me, as usual.

I love the one on the right with me on the rock. I think I’ll use it on the back cover of my next self-help book. Just kidding. I’m not writing any self-help books!

Oh, I look so authorly. Too authorly? Okay, then here, look at my chest. Funny story: I wore a hot pink bra and I’m sure poor Anna spent many hours photoshopping it out. I really didn’t mean to cause her so much extra work it’s just that it’s my favorite bra and all the other ones are all stretched out. (Motherhood is so glamorous. Also, I need to go shopping.)

Cheeeeese! You know, that smile cost my parents a pretty penny. They really couldn’t afford braces but I had the most awful snaggle-toothed grin (Seriously, bi-cuspids where bi-cuspids should not be.) that they couldn’t afford not to for my sake. Consequently, I had braces for about eleven years—or at least it seemed like it because my parents couldn’t always make the payments on time. I used to go to the orthodontist every week and sometimes I would just sit in the waiting room while the orthodontist mumbled under his breath about my parents who were late on the bill again and again. I think he probably gave me half of my appointments out of charity. And for that (and my parents hard-earned payments) I am eternally thankful.

I love these ones by this busy tile wall. Crazy texture and some cowboy boots too! I love that old dress. Yes, I have worn it to every big event for the last six years. I wear it at least once a month and it’s still going strong. I’ll probably cry when it finally wears out.

Secret Agent Girl! Er Woman, er…Mom or something.

I really like these ones. Too bad Bug’s glasses are knocked all caliwumpus.

Who says 39-year-olds can’t show their knees? I do. Except they don’t look so bad in this shot. Anna is amazing, I tell you.

Okay. Tired of that dress yet? Good ’cause we’re moving on.

This is Brenda of the Grapefruit Groves. Have you heard that ghost story? Just kidding. This is me in my giant thrift-store turquoise skirt. I bought it for about three bucks and had my aunt take it in for me. It was a size 22 but I loved the color so much I just ripped that size tag out and got it tailored. Them’s the perks of having a seamstress in the family.

Dappled light, sitting in trees. I’m so versatile. Don’t you just want to read my books?

Here I’m modeling for a cover for the next Twilight book.

The grapefruits were actually pretty cool. Too bad they can’t be me on my author page on Amazon.

Oh yay! Let’s look at Bug. She’s such a sight for sore eyes.

Speaking of eyes, it’s Crazy-Eyes Ponnay again! I swear, I am probably the only person who looks worse in make-up. And these are the good shots! You should see all the outtakes and what I looked like before Anna softened things. Never mind. Be thankful I’m sparing you.

I like these ones. Mostly because I am wearing my fake-but-possibly-real Missoni dress that my aunt Keren made me. What’s that you say? You have a fake-possibly-real Missoni dress? I do! Remember that Target/Missoni craze that happened a while back? Well, my aunt saw the ads and remembered an old bolt of this funky fabric she had that looked just like Missoni fabric. She has no idea where it came from and there is no brand name anywhere on the fabric or on the cardboard spool. One of her clients just left it at her shop and never asked for it back. My aunt asked me if I’d like a dress out of it and I said, Yes, Ma’am! It’s a little itchy on the inside but I love it. Nobody else has a dress like this. My mom says it gives her a headache but I don’t care. I still like it.

And Bug has one to match!

I love these photos of us in our trench coats AND the mini Eiffel Tower, or as Rotin said on Flickr: “My how we’ve grown!” We’re actually outside a French Restaurant in Newport Beach that I’ve yet to try. Anna said they got the French wrong on their painted windows so they’ve kind of lost their magic to me. But I do still love the mini Eiffel Tower. I want it in my future walk-in closet so I can throw my clothes on it.

And that’s all of them! Phew! Thank you Anna! Everyone else: you should hire her.

You know what they always tell me: It always works out. This party was no exception.

No matter how much you fret and worry and freak-out about the severe storm warnings, the wind, the lack of space, the unknown-non-rsvp-ing mystery guest list, the kids who get bored in five minutes if there isn’t a bounce house and all the many many things you wish you could fix in your old broken-down mobile home…it all works out. It all worked out perfectly thanks to many whispered prayers.

Of course everything started really early in the morning. I was making the stump cake (which by the way came together exactly how I imagined and completely architecturally amazed me. I think I’ll do a whole post on that.) my mom was making her little cherry-tomato-ladybug cracker things, my dad was hanging lights in the carport and Toby showed up which turned out to be quite providential because right then Bug and I had a pretty big disagreement over her costume for the day.

I had thought she was going to wear her blue leotard with this really pretty light purple tutu that my friend Wendy gave her. It was perfect for the party. It was gauzy and had flower petals inside the layers. Except there was one problem that I guess Bug and I had discussed already and somehow in my absentminded party-planning-craziness I had forgotten.

It was the wrong color.

Now in a normal family the mother would say to the daughter: Tough. Get over it. I am the mom, you are the kid. And then the daughter would pout for five minutes and sneak a cupcake or something. Not this family. Color is EVERYTHING. If you’ve been following this blog for the last five years, you know how Bug feels about color. First there was green, then there was fuschia and now there is this peacock blue/teal/turquoise family.

Bug has her dad’s perfectionist eye when it comes to color. They can both see shades and nuances in color that even bees and hummingbirds can’t see. Seriously. If you know Toby you’ve probably heard him discuss how a photo has a green cast to it and go on and on about it until your eyes roll back in your head. Like father, like daughter.

So, apparently sometime in the last month or so I had told Bug that I would sew her a blue skirt to match her leotard. I’m sure I did. I had waxed on about all sorts of costume ideas and I’m sure she overheard me talking about them with all sorts of people. There was a time when I was thinking of sewing material to the leotard in waves to make her look like a water fairy and then I had this idea that I would sew up an old 60′s pattern my mom had in a pretty turquoise raw silk…But when it came down to the week of the party and I had way too much to get done (plus work deadlines), I just shelved all those fancy costume dreams and figured she was okay with the purple tutu. She had worn it several times before and flounced around so happily. I thought we were good.

I was wrong and Bug has a memory like an elephant.

Just when I thought it was going to be a whole day of “It’s-my-birthday-I-can-cry-if-I-want-to” Toby showed up. Of course he took her side, he always does. So I hatched a brilliant plan. If Toby would take her to the fabric store and buy her some blue tulle in the perfect color, then I would sew it right then and there. Never mind that I had 50 cupcakes to ice, animal masks to cut out and assemble, counters to clean, a hot cocoa bar to set up, craft tables to be set up, lemonade to make…blah-ti-blah-crazy-party-zilla rant here.

I figured either Toby would refuse to go to the fabric store on principle (places like that give him the willies) and then he’d be stuck convincing Bug that the purple tutu was perfectly fine OR they’d go together and have a wonderful father-daughter bonding time over color and fabric and they’d both be out of my hair for HOURS.

As you can see my plan worked brilliantly. They were gone for hours and everyone was happy. And yes, I can totally sew a tutu out of a yard of organza (not tulle) in five minutes flat.

Next came the spread. Amazingly, I was able to get everything done at the last minute. My mom went completely crazy over-the-top with these super cute little bug appetizers that I did not really get a good photo of. (That is my one big regret of the day. I never handed my camera off to someone else to take photos. And all my regular photographer friends weren’t there so the only photos I have are blurry ones. It breaks my heart too because I think this is my favorite party and all I have to show for it are a dozen blurry photos. Oh well.)

My mom made ladybugs out of cherry tomatoes, ants on a log, snails out of cucumbers wrapped around some kind of cream-cheese-sundried tomato mix and some green leafy-looking tortilla pinwheel things. I never got to taste them but I heard everyone else raving so I guess they were really good.

I was just so happy the cake turned out. The mushrooms my aunt made and these funny little malt ball acorns we made by rolling one end in melted chocolate and chopped nuts were so cute!! It was the best cake ever. I’m just so sad I didn’t get better photos.

Anyway, you get the idea.

But you know what else turned out? Everything else!!! I was so happy and relieved.

I had cancelled the bounce house because all morning it had been drizzling and the weather report forecasted nothing but rain and wind. But then one hour into the party, the sun came out and my Aunt Keren called the bounce house company back up and told them to get there ASAP. I had really given up on the idea. The driveway was full of cars, it just seemed monumentally impossible but never under-estimate the power of a short red-head. They get things DUN. Cars got re-parked, the bounce house people showed up and five minutes later we had kids bouncing in a giant fairytale castle in the sunshine. I couldn’t believe it.

Really, I should include one other thing in this story. Earlier in the day, probably around 2pm, I had remarked to my Aunt Keren (who had gotten there early to help) that I really wanted to brush my teeth before the guests arrived at 3pm. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, I hadn’t even had my coffee…things were crazy. All my kitchen counter-tops (which is really only one counter) were a mess and I was starting to get a tiny bit snappy at my mom because most of the mess was her mess—which I love her for dearly because LADY BUGS! SNAILS! ANTS ON A LOG! All not part of my plan but so WONDERFUL!!! Actually, I take that back. I did ask her to make the ladybugs but the rest were her creative embellishments. Super super cool but sort of worrying me because now we had about five thousand things to do at the very last minute. You can imagine my party-zilla distress.

My aunt pulled me by the arm into the bathroom and made me brush my teeth. She physically made me do it. I’m sure partly because I had horrible breath and partly because she knew I was going to explode and yell at my mom if she didn’t. So there we were in my tiny bathroom and while I’m brushing she held my hand and prayed out loud. I don’t remember what she prayed but I know it was something about it being a wonderful party for a happy little girl who we love so much.

And that’s why when the sun came out and my counters were all perfectly clean and there was a giant pink bounce house in my driveway that I felt like God was smiling at me. I hate being a gushy Christian going on about how God makes things “easy” because he doesn’t but for one moment I realized that if I just throw up my hands and let Him take care of things he totally does! It wasn’t supposed to be sunny!! It was rainy and cold and people were freezing. I did actually have to hand out blankets to the moms who sat outside and watched their kids in the bounce house but it was wonderful. It was cozy. We had hot chocolate and the lights my dad hung in my carport made it feel warm and inviting.

We had sun.

The fairy house kits were a hit. (Thank you Momfluential for that wonderful idea!) Some of the kids were baffled by it, others were engrossed. It’s really fun to watch how creative some children are naturally. They don’t need any prompting at all. The others didn’t get it at all so they went bananas in the bounce house instead, which was perfectly fine with me.

The lemonade turned out perfectly. You should really use this idea at your next party. The hole-punching was a bit of a chore but so worth it.

The hot chocolate bar was wonderful, thanks to my friend Deb who acted as bartender and some tasty six dollar amaretto from Trader Joe’s.

The masks were a fun photo prompt. I always like to have some silly thing like this to prompt people to take photos. You can download your own copies over at Alpha+Mom if you were thinking of having a woodland creatures party. (I strongly recommend it!)

Some people don’t need much prompting. Love her.

And of course there were presents…

And everyone fit in my tiny house!!!

And cake!

I love these candles that don’t burn out. They give you plenty of chances to get a photo even if you are the hostess with the mostess and you’re too frazzled to check your camera settings.

Blow little Bug, Blow!

She finally got them all out and everybody cheered. It was great.

Carrien cut the cake for me because I was afraid of it. I’ve never made a cake that big before and the chocolate sticks were in there making it all weird and unpredictable. I just let the professional take care of it. Do you know what else Carrien is a professional at? Cleaning stoves. Yeah. She’s has OCD about it. It was so funny. As the party was dying down and we were cleaning up, she started cleaning my very dirty stove. At first I tried to stop her, but then she got in there with a little bread-tab scraper and I figured I better shut up because that stove was going to be cleaner than it’s ever been in it’s entire life!!!

So that was pretty much it. These photos are from the after party. I love the after party. Chatting, cleaning, kids playing dress up…it was just a whole bunch of wonderful.

A very long, tiring day of wonderful.

I have to admit I’m solar-powered. You always wondered why I’m full of enthusiasm and great ideas. Well, that’s my secret. It’s the sun. When the sun goes down so do I. So I get plenty of sleep which is awesome. I’m like Wall-E when I wake up. I have to situate my face so that the sun can fill up my battery reserves and then BVrrroooong! I make that sound a mac makes when it starts up and you forget to turn off the volume before shut down last time (Don’t you hate it when that happens at the library?).

This also goes for my moods. Sunny = Happy. Cloudy = Sad.

It’s great that I live in Southern California where it is sunny 90 percent of the time but when it’s cloudy I suddenly become like the rest of you sad people on anti-depressants and I don’t know what to do with all this gloom! It’s so murky and, and…awful!!! How do you cope?!! How do you get anything done? Ugh. I feel like I’m wearing cement shoes and my arms are stuck to the ground with strings of chewing gum. I just want to go crawl into a hole and die.

This is all not very fantastic when you’re planning a birthday party for a little girl who is turning six and birthday parties are what you are good at. There is no failing at birthday-party-planning in this house. No sadness allowed! We eat obstacles for lunch. Bring on the challenges!!! Fifty people in a small mobile home with muddy feet?! I can do it!!!!

As you can see, my winter-wonderland of backyard fun with stumps for chairs and bedspreads for tents might not be happening. My visions of tulle strung from the trees and girls sipping lemonade is vanishing before my very eyes. All I can see are freezing cold fairies with muddy feet running in and out of my house and tracking mud all over my peach-colored carpet. Which I hate anyway so I guess it’s not that big of a deal but I’m still getting hives over it. Ugh! Mud! Kids! Hyperactivity! The bounce house people won’t deliver the bounce house if it’s going to rain!! What am I going to do?!!!!

There is a thirty-percent chance of rain predicted for Saturday. I know in Portland that would be a perfect day for an outdoor party. You might even throw a pool party on a day like that and wear a bikini but here? We are weeenies! We are freezing our butts off!!! We are seriously shivering and moaning. It’s sad and pathetic and majorly cramping my party-planning style.

Well, until the sun comes out. When the sun shines I can think of all kinds of crazy ideas. I can do this. We can have an indoor party. I am excellent at crafts! But when the sun goes back behind a cloud again I shrivel up. The obstacles! It’s too hard! I just want to cancel the whole thing.

Such crazy talk.

So here’s my plan: The bounce house people said I can decide on the day of the party whether or not to have a bounce house. If it’s raining we’ll just move on. If it’s not really raining we will move the bounce house to the front yard and put it on the driveway where there is no mud. I don’t know where people are going to park but that’s their problem.

Inside: I’m going to move all my furniture to the side and create a big open space in my living room/office. Maybe I’ll talk Toby into letting me borrow the giant heirloom Persian rug that he has rolled up in Bug’s room at his house that is not getting used. He won’t mind too terribly if it gets chocolate cake ground into it, right? Hmmm…that probably won’t fly.

Then I’ll use all that tulle that I was going to put in the trees outside, inside. It will be like prom night! I’ll just hang it from the ceiling from an old hula hoop or something.

I bet you wondered why I have a whole bolt of tulle. That’s a good question. I’m weird. I used to do flowers for weddings back in the 90′s and I had a much bigger budget back then. I guess I just bought a whole bolt of tulle and I still have it to this day. I have a whole shed full of floral supplies leftover from those days. It’s coming in very handy.

So with the tulle and these stars it could be magical, right? Bug and I made silver stars the other day with card stock and glitter. I was going to hang them from the trees outside with my fairy orbs but now I think I’ll just hang them inside. Maybe I’ll get crazy with some sheets and make fairy tents inside too. That will be super fun when the kids pull them down along with the sheetrock from my ceiling. Oh boy.

I wish I had a man around the house who liked to build things. That would be so awesome. I could probably install a giant branch in the middle of my living room and bolt it to the ceiling. The cats would go crazy. (Note to self: If ever dating again make sure to date someone handy.) But I have no man around the house and my dad is working until Saturday so I’ll probably have to scale back my visions. That’s okay. It’s gonna happen. We’ll make it work. It always does.

Ugh. How am I going to make this work? You see this kitchen? Charming you think? Shudder. The wallpaper offends me so badly that I think I’ve blocked it out. It’s like a weird vibration in my head that makes me only see white where the little flowers are. But then I got this idea that I would rip off a part of the wallpaper near the sink. It had some water-staining and was really driving me crazy. I thought I would do what I did in my bedroom and go with the whole I-live-in-a-run-down-Parisian-apartment look where the ripped wallpaper reminds me of an Anthropolgie ad.

It did not work. Now I have a big blank spot over the sink that is still water-stained and your eye is drawn to it because it is NOT wall-papered!!! I might as well install neon signs pointing at all the ugliness. This would not be a big deal if the weather was great. I would just route everybody straight to the backyard and they would avoid the kitchen but now all my guests are going to be filing through my kitchen and silently judging me. I just know it.

If I had a man around the house I would ask him to paint all the wallpaper red for me or maybe pistachio green to match the cupboards. (Boy, don’t I seem like a catch?) I would do it myself except all those shelves would have to be removed (and the screw holes are puddied) and there is this light fixture contraption near the sink that my Grandpa installed that is bent on electrocuting me. I already tried to de-install it once and it zapped and ker-powed at me like a comic book villain. I’ve decided to leave it alone. So I don’t think this kitchen eyesore is going to be magically beautiful before the party. Back to blocking it out.

Did I mention that we went to one of Bug’s friend’s party this last weekend and they had a huge perfect house where they regularly host weddings in their living room? Yeah. No pressure. None at all. How does one go about canceling a party at the last minute again? Can I just board up my house and pretend I don’t live here?

Let’s talk about what is working. The craft ideas for the party are going along swimmingly. I know it’s hard to tell when I’m being sarcastic and when I’m not but here I’m actually happy about something. I decided to use Momfluential’s idea for fairy house kits. All those floral supplies I have on hand totally saved me. I didn’t even have to buy one thing to make all these bags up. It’s kinda scary that I have that much crap on hand but hey, it works out. I get to get rid of a lot of stuff and the kids get make fun fairy house with odd bits and bobs. I hope they are into it. I know I will be. I am all over this kind of craft like a fly on…nevermind. You get the picture. It’s going to be fun.

I think I’ll give each kid a stump disc and maybe some putty to stick things into. I was going to be on glue-gun duty but I decided with thirty-some kids they’d probably all want me to glue something and one of them was bound to get burnt. Since I don’t know every kid as well as I usually do I think I’ll pass on all the possible lawsuits. I think they can manage with sticks and putty and chennile stems and string. It’ll be fun.

The next thing that is working are the fairy drinks. I bought a whole bunch of canning jars and covered the printing on the lid with some silk flowers.

Then I punched a hole through the metal lid with my trusty metal hole-puncher and my super human man-hand strength. Actually, I only did one. It was pretty tough but it can be done. I’m leaving the rest of the lids for Saturday and I’ll let my Dad do it. Or any other random strong person who comes around.

Then I filled the jar with ice, a lemon slice and some delicious homemade lemonade from my backyard. I screwed the lid back on, stuck a pretty striped straw through the hole and presto! A perfect fairy drink!

So I’m making it work. When the sun comes out I’m pretty positive.

Over Christmas Vacation Bug and I had a few adventures. First we went to the annual bible conference we always go to with my family. It was really nice but not very photogenic so I have no photos to share. I take that back. I did take quite a few instagrams in the hotel:

We love hotels. Especially this one. The beds are always so nice and white and fluffy.

After the conference we had some time before we had to be home so I looked up local points of interest on my handy dandy smart phone and saw that the Hollywood sign was only fifteen minutes away. I’ve always wanted to see it up close. Unfortunately, you can’t actually get very close but it was a fun adventure anyway.

It was a beautiful day. As my Aunt was telling me earlier, January is Southern California’s best kept secret. We always have the best weather in January.

We had a nice walk around the lookout spot.

The view was amazing outside of the hazy smog.

After I was sure I had secured every possible touristy photo possible we headed home. But not without first stopping for lunch in Pasadena!

We ate at this really delicious French crepe place. It was pretty fancy and a bit out of our budget but sooo much better than fast food which was what we’d find along the rest of our route home. I love mother-daughter lunches.

No, I didn’t eat all that. I took half of it home and had it for breakfast the next day!

Service was authentically slow so we had lots of time to goof around and take photos, which I actually enjoy a lot.

Then gelato for Bug for desert! It was so pretty in this gelato shop. The light was reflecting off the buildings across the street and flooding the store through their big windows.

This cute couple really caught my attention but I didn’t want to freak them out taking too many photos.

So I was sneaky about it!

I could have stayed all day taking photos but because I had parked in a public parking lot and given the guard my keys, I was too nervous to leave my laptop in the car and therefore was stuck carrying it around with me. So that with my camera and my giant purse…it was a bit cumbersome. After a few blocks of me taking photos we headed back to the car and home.

You know, having a birthday in January is pretty awesome. I know back when I first discovered I was pregnant and calculated my due date, I was afraid. I thought it would be a terrible thing to have a birthday in such a dark winter month right after Christmas. I imagined that we’d be so over presents and festivities that her birthday would get overlooked.

Who was I kidding? Me over presents and festivities? That’s like asking me not to breathe. We might be a little strapped for cash in January but that never stopped anyone in my family from planning the perfect theme party.

January is the perfect month to have a birthday. If anything, it helps us get through the winter months with something fun to look forward to.

An aside about my child’s rat’s nest hairdo: We were on vacation and that is what her hair does if you just wake up and don’t comb it every fifteen minutes. We call it rockstar hair. I used to have a complex about her hair. It’s so fine and is messy more often than it’s brushed. I thought everyone would judge me and think I didn’t love my child because she always looks uncared for. But then one day I saw a magazine spread about some rockstar’s kids. There they were in their Gucci outfits with their Prada shoes playing with their organically hip toys with HORRID MESSY HAIR! Except they didn’t look like ragamuffins, they looked like happy kids. So I decided to get over Bug’s messy hair and call it rockstar hair.

As you can see, Bug is making a paper chain. It’s a count-down-to-her-birthday-party chain. I thought Bug would make one of these in school for Christmas but they didn’t. They probably don’t hype the holidays as much as I remember when I was a kid because of all the political correctness. So I figured, why count off days on the calendar every day when cutting up a bunch of strips of paper is just as easy? And it was a simple craft that she could do pretty much by herself while I busied myself in the kitchen with dishes or something.

As you can see it went perfectly with a cup of hot chocolate with THREE straws. Don’t ask. It’s because I keep the straws in an easily accessible spot and she helped herself. I probably should enforce some rules about that but I figured it wasn’t going to hurt. We rarely use straws so tripling up now and then is not the end of the world.

She made the chain pretty much all by herself. Backwards numbers and all…it was a good exercise in number-writing and following a pattern. Bug is a freak about color so she needed very little encouragement to make a color pattern. In fact, it was her idea and I had to calm her down when she skipped a number and we had to throw in a lone green loop to keep from having to start all over again mid-chain. The horror! A green loop in the middle of things! It’s a good thing Bug has me for a mom because I am the queen of not being a perfectionist and I can help balance out her type-A tendencies. Shrug it off, I say. Though I’m sure we’re doomed to a lifetime of not understanding each other.

Anyway, we’re on the countdown. You know what that means: Party-planning time! My favorite time! I couldn’t care less about the actual party. If I could be invisible at the party and just hover around watching everything and taking pictures, I’d be much happier. But of course that’s not the way things go. I have to actually socialize and eat. Such a burden. Ha ha. Just kidding, mostly.

Here are the beginnings of the process. We’re having a fairy party in the backyard. I’m going to let the grass grow and pretend it’s an overgrown wonderland. There’s a pine tree in my front yard that badly needs cutting down so my dad is going to take a chainsaw to it and save the stumps for chairs. I hope it doesn’t rain.

I’m calling the party “Six in the Sticks.” Why not!? We might as well capitalize on that happy coincidence.

I’ve made the invitations that included cutting out about thirty-seven hundred little Bug fairies. Yes, I am insane. But these little insane things make me happy. I’m a very happy insane person with sore hands.

It’s a Bug army! (thanks to an instagrammer for that line)

I attached tissue wings (glitterized with a few finger-swipes of glitter glue) to the Bug Fairy and then taped her to a brown paper invitation with a funny fairy poem and some stick graphics along the sides. It actually worked out pretty well.

I’m trying to play up a woodland version of fairies instead of all that bright synthetic Disney crap. I had enough of that last year. In my vision I would have girls romping in Victorian dresses with gossamer wings and brown paper fox-head masks. Maybe the fox-head mask is a little weird. I don’t know. I secretly want to grow up and be a photo stylist for Vogue but fairy parties is where I channel that frustration.

Then it’s all tied up with a half sheet of transparent vellum and tied with these really cool wire flowers that my mom bought for me last year from some half-off clearance sale at the local fabric store. I think they turned out pretty cute. Now I’m just worried they’re too fancy.

I have a little bit of a dilemma. I wanted Bug to invite two or three of her best friends from kindergarten but we couldn’t figure out which girls to invite. She likes one girl very much but I know when I drop her off that there are at least two or three others who are so sweet to her. They always make a special point of saying hi and shouting across the playground at her. Many of them comfort her when she’s crying and having anxiety attacks about school. I couldn’t figure out which girls they were so I caved and invited all of them. Thirteen girls!!! I can’t handle thirteen little girls!!! I really hope they don’t all show.

I’m worried that when the parents see this super fancy invitation they are going to think they can score some swag at some rich kid’s party. Big surprise they’re going to get when they roll up to my classy mobile home. But I’m hoping that since her school is way on the other side of town that most of the kids won’t come. Is that how things work? Most of the parents are much younger than me and I don’t think we have much in common. I don’t know. Toby promised to pay for a bounce house so I’m hoping that will handle all the kids.

But what if it rains?!!!

In other news:

1. I have a little giveaway going on my review blog for anybody with a new baby. It’s kinda fun.

2. I have not finished that heartfelt, big, meaningful post that I promised you. Every time I promise something it seems to be the kiss of death. Ugh. The thing is that it is not my story so I’m trying to sort out the details with a friend whom I’m writing it for. I did promise her I’d write it though so I do really really want to keep my word. You’ll see when I finally get it done.

3. I’m almost done with the SAJ poster. Super-sleuthing spy-sentence hunters: your prize is almost done! Stay tuned!

While I’m working on that really hard heart-felt post I thought I’d let Bug entertain you with her usual silliness. Do you know anybody who does this? Is your life an ap?

Wow. I had no idea kindergarten homework was such a hot topic! Instead of responding in the comments I figured I’d write a second post because I still have a lot to say on this subject.

First, I feel a little sheepish because I exaggerated a bit about Bug’s homework. I wanted to be funny and those were my feeeeeelings at the time. While I still feel that her homework is excessive and our battles over it are still quite epic, I think a lot of my frustration with homework and Bug are based on her sense of timing clashing with mine and not necessarily how terrible the homework is itself. I meant to get into that in my post but I ranted on about how stupid the homework was and ended my post before I even got to that. Sometimes my posts write themselves and when I find myself with a pat ending, I just hit publish instead of making sure I covered my topic well.

So!

I do agree that the homework is excessive. I don’t understand why she has to do a packet of 20-some pages that takes us easily an hour every night, three nights of the week (it’s due on Thursdays). However, the work for the most part is on target for what she is learning. It’s actually easy for her. She’s aced nearly every test she’s ever taken in school and when she focuses on the work, she can get through it. She just likes to take her sweet time. Which does not mesh well with my sense of urgency or schedule.

I’m a classic first-born, over-achieving, people-pleaser. I always did well in school and I want Bug to too, of course. Thankfully, she’s a bright kid and she learns easily. I can probably blow off the homework and she’ll still do fine. It’s just hard for me to fly in the face of authority like that. I will talk to her teacher and bring this subject up.

I know Bug struggles with getting all her work done in school too. We’ve talked about it, her and I. She tells me that her teacher tells her not to worry about it, “she can do it later” so this is probably something I should apply to homework as well. I know they aren’t going to fail her if she doesn’t complete the packet. It just goes against my grain to turn in something half done.

However, I realize that is my pride talking. Like some of you mentioned, I don’t want to beat the fun of learning out of her. My nieces went to this same school and I think that happened a little bit with them. They both struggled with getting homework done and part of me wonders if maybe it was because there was JUST TOO MUCH.

I think I would like a school that banned homework. I think I’d probably even like a school that banned screen time but right now with our situation, I cannot homeschool and I cannot afford private school. This is the best school I could get her into in the town we live in. It’s public school.

I think public school sucks right now in most of California, maybe even the country. BUT I don’t think it’s going to hurt her. I think she is going to learn just fine because she’s smart and learning comes naturally for her. We work on learning new things at home independently from school so I think for the most part going to school for her is just for socialization and learning to accept authority other than me.

In fact, she is thriving outside of our homework battles. Bug’s teacher is WONDERFUL. I love her. Bug loves her. Pretty much the sun and moon set around her teacher. I bet even her teacher thinks the homework is bogus. I’m going to talk to her about it the next chance I get. I think it’s a school-district policy to have them do these packets and she is just following orders. Maybe this is what works for the common denominator and obviously Bug is not the common denominator.

What I needed to ask you kind readers, and I failed to get to it in my last post, is how does one deal with a child who is a dawdler? Many of you touched on this in the comments and I want to know more. Are there any dawdlers out there who have grown up to be normal adults who can help me understand this behavior through your eyes?

This is something I love about Bug. She finds wonder in everything. We can walk down the street and she will admire every tree, every branch, every leaf, every crack in the sidewalk… The world through her eyes is amazing. But she also takes five minutes to fasten her seatbelt every time we get in the car and has to be drug down the street so that we can actually get from point A to point B in a timely manner. Is there a way to mesh my people-pleasing, over-achieving, driven style of mothering with her independent streak? What is it like to be nagged endlessly by someone like me? Is it as horrible as I feel when I’m doing it? Is there a better way to get her do something? Can someone like her be hurried? Or do I just need to let things fall apart?

We’ve been struggling with homework lately. To be honest, I think homework has been a challenge from the start which is silly because it’s kindergarten! How hard can it be, right? Hah. Kindergarten schmindergarten. I think these three-inch packets of busywork they send home as “homework” are a trick to see if parents are paying attention, that’s what they are. If you don’t help your children do the homework correctly then it must mean you don’t love them! The homework police are watching! Fail! Fail! Fail!

For example: that black rectangular smudge on this thrice-copied xerox that someone hand-me-downed from the eighties is a van, right? V is for van? Or maybe it’s a sink. Is there an S on there? Hmm…let me squint and read the miniscule directions along the side of this really crappy worksheet copy…oh, the directions got cut off. We’re just supposed to know what to do because we’re grown-ups and kindergarten homework is for five-year-olds. Surely 39-year-olds can handle simple letter-recognition exercises? I have a degree in English dadgumit!

So my inability to comprehend kindergarten homework directions coupled with my five-year-old’s highly-effective homework resistance efforts have moved the actual homework completion process to a fairly volatile situation. Meaning, the morning that homework is due has turned into full-on bootcamp craziness, complete with me yelling my head off and the five-year-old running off to her room in tears. And this is just kindergarten!! Whatever are we going to do when she gets to word problems and science projects and book reports?!!!

My feelings exactly.

I don’t know.

We’ve tried everything. We’ve tried sitting down and doing little bits daily. She pokes at it. Spends probably 45 minutes procrastinating and picking all the berries off my centerpiece and gets 1/32nd of it done. We’ve tried me sitting next to her coaching her kindly. That lasts about 45 minutes and then my face melts off and I retreat to go text or something on my phone. We’ve tried comedy hour with me making jokes about every little thing. Haha! Isn’t the number seven so funny the way it slants to the left so that all the little children can slide down it and go to the front of the line! HA HA HA HAA HO HO HO HEE HEE HEE!!! She loves that method. We spend hours laughing our heads off and get about nothing done. And then when I don’t make jokes she thinks I’m the meanest mom in the whole wide world.

I’m such a cruel mom! I’m NOT funny AND I make her do stuff. Like pick up her dirty laundry and brush her teeth. It’s so unfair!! Why does she have do EVERYTHING!!!

Does anybody else out there struggle with kindergarten homework?

Do you have any tips for me? Anything has got to be better than how we’re doing it.

I have to admit this book tour has been kicking my butt. It doesn’t seem like I’m doing much. Just throwing up a graphic every weekday and then resting on my accolades but I don’t know…I’m not really doing so great at it. I got my schedule all mixed up. I missed emailing some key players, I’ve been getting people the secret sentences at the very last minute and sometimes even hours after that. I’ve been dropping the ball, regularly. Work, books, life…everywhere. I was even late to pick up Bug from kindergarten today and I had promised myself I would NEVER do that.

You should see my desk right now. It’s a complete mess. Maybe I’ll take a picture tomorrow when it’s daylight because I probably won’t have it cleaned up by then. That’s the way the days have been going. But in a way, I’m thankful. I prayed for work and I got it. I’m not rolling in paychecks but I’m making ends meet and I’m busy. It’s a lot to be thankful for.

Winter has been hard on my sense of optimism as I’m sure it has on yours too. The days are so short! It feels like it’s eight when it’s FOUR! How are we ever supposed to get anything done? Well. At 3am of course. That’s why I drink coffee.

But coffee is killing me.

I tried to take some Christmas photos for a card that I was going to print up this week and mail out next but I couldn’t get a single shot of Bug and me where I didn’t look like a hot mess. Of course she is darling in every single shot but I look like I’m old and drunk with bloodshot eyes that even photoshop can’t fix. I know I could just put a photo of her on the card and call it a day but I vowed to embrace getting older. I don’t want to hide from my wrinkles and gray hairs. Women can be beautiful at any age, I’ve always thought.

I just didn’t know I would look so scary at 39!!

(I like this one the best.)

So I gave up after a while and vowed to drink a lot of water, drink less coffee and get more sleep. You can see how well that’s working for me. I’m typing this at 2:58 am.

Anyway! The book tour is chugging along. I am so grateful for all my friends and co-bloggers who are saying such nice things about my books. I really don’t deserve it or them. And before you correct me and say that all my hard work is paying off let me correct you and say that my work is nothing in comparison to how kind my friends (and family!) have been to me lately.

They’ve picked me up when I’ve been crying. They’ve given me attitude adjustments when I felt like a failure. They’ve pushed me when I just wanted to give up. They’ve watched Bug for me when I had deadlines. They’ve let me stay at their houses when I had nowhere to go…They’ve nodded when I didn’t have the words. They’ve fed me and Bug when we were hungry. They’ve told me that it’s been a hard year and it’s okay to feel like this. Sometimes I guess I need to hear that because I keep wondering why I’m not doing better than I am.

The autographing party went off smashingly! I didn’t actually autograph any books though. Funny how that happens. You set a date, you get everything ready and then you get in a room with your good friend, good food, a glass of wine and next thing you know you are spending the night talking instead of working.

This is Calee, my publisher, friend, book-maker extraordinaire.

She made soup. That’s kind of awesome, isn’t it? I thought I would order a pizza but she said she had some vegetables that had needed “souping”. How funny is she? Vegetables that needed souping. I wasn’t going to say no to that. If vegetables gotta be souped, they gotta be souped! She saved me $20 and got me to be healthy at the same time. It was quite tasty. I wish I had the urge to soup vegetables now and then. I might have to work on that.

Bug was a little disappointed at the soup instead of pizza (and potato soup at that, the crime of it!!) but it was nothing a few thousand olives couldn’t fix.

Besides all the soup-eating, olive-eating and merry-making, we did get a lot of things organized and the kids had a blast painting.

A little too close to the books for my liking but thankfully no books were marred! A few paypal invoices might have taken one for the team but what can I say? It kept the kids busy and happy and out of our hair!

Today I actually did autograph all the books and I sent them off as promised (yay!). Bug worked very hard at hers. I love that a few readers requested her signature.

She takes it very seriously, adding flowers and hearts and clouds. She is an eternal bright spot. Talk about God knowing what you need when you need it….

Did you know she makes me coffee? She might be a bit of an enabler but who could say no to that face and a cup of hot steaming coffee with just the right amount of cream and sugar? Not me!!

You should see her holding the cup with a towel so it doesn’t burn her and walking so slowly to my desk so that she doesn’t spill. My heart explodes every time.