How much should you support them?

Bean loves to paint and do crafts.  Her teacher just raved about one of her paintings last week, posting it on her Instagram.  Bean just knows when she grows up she will be an artist - as much as anyone knows what they will do when they are 7.  

She got an idea from her older cousins about starting her own business.  They've started making painted t-shirts and jewelry.  She thought this was wonderful and of course wanted to be like her cousins so she has now decided to start her own business selling her paintings.  She has enlisted her friends at school to make drawings, too.  She came up with a website name and wants me to take her to arts and crafts fairs to set up a booth.  She thinks this is something akin to Girl Scout cookie booths and believes all you have to do is grab a folding table and set it up outside the local BBQ joint for a couple of hours and people will flock to you with money waving.  Minty chocolate wafers are one thing - elementary school art is another.

But she has really put a lot of time into this whole concept.  

The downside is while I think everything is beautiful and rivals Picasso, I know these are paintings, drawings and artwork put together by a 7 year old.  And not a 7 year old prodigy.  Just MY prodigy.  

I know, aside from family, it will be hard to find customers for this business.  I would be reluctant to believe people are going to spend money on these items.  

Am I being too - I don't know - too something?  How do I explain to her that people probably won't buy?  

How do I let her down easy?  Or should I?  I guess I don't want her to get her feelings hurt or get disappointed in her talent.  I do think she is talented but I know I'm Mom, everything she does is great by me.  

BUT AM I NOT BEING SUPPORTIVE?  

How much should I support this right now?  I've told her she needs to keep practicing and I've bought her books, we've watched videos, I signed her up for classes.  All that.  But should I allow her to find some place to sell?  I think that might be too much.  And Lord help anyone that says anything to hurt her feelings if she ever did set up somewhere.  Mama Bear will come out on anyone that makes any disparaging comment.  

I am afraid my hesitations are just that - mine - and not something that should hold her back from what she believes in.  Sometimes though, it's okay to be hesitant, right?  What if I sign her up for some booth and no one buys anything and she gets discouraged.  I think she is the type of personality that if she does not succeed the first time, she will flounder and give it all up.  It would break my heart if that happened.  

How far do you go to help your child and support their dreams?

Pinterest Projects - Lorax T-Shirt and Matching Hairbow!

This week most schools around the country will celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Each day this week, Bean's class will be doing something Seuss-related.  One day, they get to dress up as their favorite Seuss character.

I thought for sure she would pick The Cat in the Hat or maybe a Truffula tree.

Thought wrong once again.  Just add it to the list.

She picked The Lorax.

Now, I honestly never remember reading The Lorax when I was a kid, and only knew about it from the movie, which I have only seen bits and pieces.

Maybe it was due to orange being her new favorite color.  (Ugh.)  Maybe she heard another child say they wanted to be The Lorax.  I don't know.

I first suggested we figure out a way to make her an orange wig.

She immediately used her un-elected but often over-used First (and only) Kid veto power and said "No way, Mommy.  I'm not wearing a wig."

You're 7.  Chill out.

No.  No wigs.

Okay, fine!

I immediately looked at The Husband and said "Hey, you got any ideas?"

I recently turned him onto Pinterest.  Yes, I brought another one over to the dark side.  Well done, me!

He said "Why don't you look on that pinning place?"

"Pinning Place".  What an amateur.

So of course, out came the phone and Pinterest got fired up.

We all searched and scrolled.  Then this lovely, super cute pin came onto the screen and Bean said "I like that!".

When you click on it, you just get a picture, no instructions.  Since I do not have permission to post another person's child on my blog, I will just direct you to the pin itself.

But basically, it's The Lorax's features cut out of felt and attached to a t-shirt.  Easy enough.

I found this pumpkin carving template of The Lorax and used it as the pattern for my felt.

Property of Today's Creative Blog

I cut out the eyebrows and mustache.

Then I broke out my Christmas present!  LOOK!  AIN'T SHE PURDY!!!!

That's professional right there!

I love her.  Like LOVE.  REAL LOVE.

Jiggly eyes and a fuzzy ball nose.

Big schnoz or little schnoz????

We went BIG.

Hot glued everything on.  You will need to put a piece of cardboard in the middle of the t-shirt or you might hot glue the front and back of the shirt together.

Not that that happened or anything.  (It totally happened.)

And of course, when you are wearing that much orange and you AREN'T a Tennessee fan, you really should live on the edge and spice it all up with a matching hairbow, right??

So there you have it.  A Lorax t-shirt and coordinating hairbow.

Seuss has never been so stylish!

My review of Paddington

This past Saturday, Hubz and I took 9 little girls between the ages of 4-8 to see Paddington.  Here is my movie review.  There are spoilers.

I missed the opening and first 5 minutes of the movie because I was cleaning up the party room and getting popcorn for a little girl.

An explorer from London is talking to 3 bears telling them how great London is.  He tells them a story about small children being put on trains and sent to live with other families during the war.  He says no one turns anyone away and that all the children are looked after and loved because this is England and damn it, it is the best place in the world.

The explorer goes back to London but first tells the bears if they are ever in town, that they will always find a home with him.  Then a great earthquake comes to Darkest Peru and one of the bears does not make it.  Paddington stows away on a cargo ship while the aunt goes to live in the Home for Retired Bears.  

Not sure exactly what happens next because I had to get up to refill 5 drink cups and get more popcorn.

Came back and bear is talking to a lovely British family, the father being played by the brilliant Lord Grantham.  Lord Grantham does not want to bring said bear home.  Kooky mother overrides LG and they try to figure out a name for him. They look up to see the Paddington Station sign and canon is created.

More drink refills and something about a bathtub coming down the stairs.

Paddington is banished to the attic.  Need more popcorn.

Enter the villain - small bladders and Nicole Kidman.  Bathroom break.  

Evidently Nicole Kidman wants to stuff Paddington which seems very hostile to me.  Maybe she isn't enjoying the new season of American Idol.

More drink refills.

Dr. Who is infatuated with Mrs. Keith Urban.  Tries to help her snatch Paddington but then realizes she is a taxidermist so he turns nice and looks for a blue box.

Lord Grantham decides he wants to save Paddington and wants him to be part of their family.  

The other 3 girls now have to pee.

Yay!  Paddington is saved and they all make orange marmalade together.

Party and movie over.  I needed a drink and it wasn't cherry coke.  

What I saw of this movie was wonderful.  Can't wait for it to come out on DVD so I can see the whole movie.  

Saving money one handful of change at a time.

Every year when the holidays come, I am stuck trying to figure out how to pay for gifts and do any activities we'd like to for the season.  I recently joined a Facebook group for budgeting run by A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Someone posted about the 52 Week savings plan.  I know this challenge would be hard for me to stick to, especially toward the end of the year.  Then I read about the 365 Day Saving Challenge.

This challenge was first shared by SavingAdvice.com.

For this challenge, you save your change each day.  Depending on what day of the year it is, that is how much you put into your jar or piggy bank.  Today is the 29th day of the year so you would add 29 cents to your jar.

I have started a savings jar for all 3 of us.  My co-workers are also doing this with me.

Each day I add money to the jar, I cross off that amount on my savings sheet.

I hope to have enough by the end of November to use for Christmas gifts this year.

If you'd like to join in on the 365 Day Savings Challenge, below you can print off a copy of the savings sheet.  I have formatted this one to print full size on 8.5 x 11 paper.  You can also find the sheet on the SavingsAdvice.com website.

365 Day Savings Challenge printable

Update on us.

Update on us.

My last blog post was in October!  Many things have happened since then that have really taken over our time and kept me away from blogging.

First was Halloween.

Yes, she was one of the 1,000,000 Elsas out there that night.

Then several things happened in a short period of time.

Girl Scouts took off and as a Daisy co-leader, that meant I had extra duties to try and make our troop great this year.  Then my body decided it wanted some attention.  I started noticing my heart was always racing.  No matter if I was up moving around, sitting at my desk or lying down at night, my heart was pounding so fast.  One morning I had just sat down at my work desk and it felt like my heart pounded twice really hard, stopped, stopped, stopped, and then slammed right back into my chest.  I immediately got up and went next door to my doctor.  At first, they didn’t have a lot of answers.  I was told to stop all medications – allergy and supplements.  I went back and still my heart was racing.  They drew some blood and I found out the next day I had hyperthyroid and possibly Graves Disease.

Graves Disease is an autoimmune disease where your own immune system starts attacking your thyroid.  I was sent to an endocrinologist and was told I did in fact have Graves and my numbers were “off the charts”.  They were concerned I would go into thyroid storm.  I can’t tell you much about it but was a nurse told me “when it happens, you think you are going to die”.   That doesn’t sound too peachy.

I was told they were going to start me on medication to try and get my levels back down (T3 and T4). The only problem was I might be allergic to the medicine.  So I spent the day before Thanksgiving at the doctor’s office – a cup with a pill and an epi pen ready to go – starting this journey.  I thankfully had no reaction and by now my levels have come down a little.  I have another doctor’s visit soon and from there we will decide how to proceed with all this in the future. 

But due to this Graves, and (really, couldn’t we think of a better name?), I have had to step down as co-leader because it was just too much.  My heart was still racing, my nerves were shot and I had no patience.  I realized I wasn’t much help so I have now gone back to being another set of hands to help out here and there. 

Then we has some fat man bearing gifts show up at our house.

New Years rang in and life is starting now to get back to somewhat calmer living.  Somewhat.

We are planning a 7^th birthday party. 

Can you believe it – 7?  

Pinterest Inspired Project - Elsa Pumpkin

The Bean recently came home from school with a Family Pumpkin Project.  The assignment was for her to decide who her favorite storybook character was and to create a pumpkin that looked like that character.  The rules were you could not carve the pumpkin but you could add paint and decorations to your heart's desire.

I love how this was a "family" project.  We all totally know that means the parents did all the work.

Yes, we did all the work.  Bean filled out the questionnaire.  I hope we get an A.

Bean immediately said she wanted to make an Elsa pumpkin.  I had no idea how that was supposed to happen but I did envision braiding some crochet thread to make that braid.

I did not want to make that braid. I suck at braiding.

So I used the time honored "parent steer" method.  Or I thought I did.  I said "hey Bean, instead of Elsa because there will probably be, like, 12 Elsas already, why don't we make Olaf?"

She was not immediately sold.  But I reminded her, several times, how much Olaf made her laugh.  She warmed up to this idea - pun intended.

I figured making Olaf would not be that hard.  Get 3 small pumpkins, paint them white and then somehow slap them together.

Let me tell you this isn't as easy as you might think.

Pumpkins do not like being slapped together. They resist the slapping and the togetherness.

I first used double sided tape because I could not find my glue gun.  By the time the glue gun was located, I had contemplated concreting the whole mess together.  While I was having a mini tantrum over these three damned pumpkins, I decided to consult my crafting bible, Pinterest, and lo and behold this fantastic beauty made by A Pumpkin and A Princess appeared and saved the day.

Look at that thing!  That is a work of art.  It's beautiful!

I immediately threw Olaf off to try and totally steal and recreate this beauty.

I had similar paint.  I had a purple gemstone crown.  I had some crystals left over from Bean's birthday party.  I had glitter spray paint!!!!   Mine and the Tooth Fairy's favorite crafting item - glitter spray paint.  I love that crap.

But I did not have any snowflakes or any of those pretty swirly rhinestones.  Oh well.  They can't all be works of art.  

This is our Elsa pumpkin.

I sprayed the crown with white spray paint and then went back over it with the glitter spray.  We painted the pumpkin with some color called Azure and then sprayed the heck out of it with more glitter spray.  We used so much glitter spray that the jewels stuck to the pumpkin with no added hot glue.  We only lost one rhinestone in transport so if you are ever out of glue, grab your glitter spray paint.  If you don't have glitter spray paint, smack yourself upside the head and rush out to your craft store and buy some!!!!  

We got a lot of oohs and aahs on the way to class.  My elbow is so sore from patting myself on the back.  

Oh yeah, we also took Olaf.

Yes, that is the world's creepiest Olaf ever.

  

We can thank Hubz for his artistic donation to the family pumpkin project for that one.  Olaf did not weather the ride to school as well as Elsa did.  Thank goodness in the movie, Olaf continually falls apart.  In that way, our Olaf is very similar.  Poor creepy Olaf.

Please Teach, give us an A!!!

Time to put your big girl panties on and get organized.

It might not come as any big surprise to anyone but I am not really a big planner.  It's true.

I usually am a day late and a dollar short for everything.  I have great ideas but I suck at planning them out.  On top of that, I am forgetful.  Both of those are bad alone but together, I'm amazed we ever get anywhere we are ever supposed to be.

With life now getting more and more hectic as Bean gets older and involved in more activities, the time has come for me to pull on my big girl panties and get us organized.

My first step is to get myself a daily planner so that I will have one spot where I can write down everything we have scheduled.  Writing something on a post-it, putting something else on my phone's calendar, or just expecting myself to remember it all no longer works - not that it ever really did.

I started looking around for a planner/calendar that would work for me.  It had to be something that was a) cute and b) something I would continue to carry around.  I've bought tons of calendars before and somehow none of them ever stuck.  I would go back to using my phone or switch purses and not bother to transfer the calendar too. I also really had no idea what I wanted as far as types of calendars, project pages, whatnot.   Pinterest was consulted.  I also joined some Facebook groups and got ideas from other ladies on what they used or looked for in a planner.

There are a lot of cute ones out there.  Unfortunately, it seemed that "cute" usually ran to the cost of about $50 or so.  That ain't that cute really - not in my pocketbook's world.

Then I had a problem with missing a payment on a work invoice.  I handle the bills for three entities at work and juggling all of that is a full time job.  Oh yeah.  That's why I work there.  Anyhoo...I made a mistake and knew that it would probably serve me well to finally institute a full time planner at work, too.

But then do I have one planner for both work and personal, or do I separate it all?  I began with the train of thought that I should separate but now I am thinking

this is my life 

- all of it.  So I might as well put everything together and not stress myself out more with having to juggle two separate calendars for 7 people (work and home life).

I got a ton of great ideas from my Facebook groups so I began my search.  First, let me say that trying to find a planner in September is probably not the best way to start.  There are hardly any left in the stores and it's hard to get a "vibe" from looking online.  I also knew that even with my bosses footing the bill, I could not justify spending $50 or even $80 for some Filofax planner.

"You see, Sir, since I am such an airhead,

I had to charge a $90 calendar to the company card 

in hopes that I won't be late on any more of your payments."

That probably would not fly in this office's airspace, if you get my drift.  I have learned at least one thing in the past 17 years here and that is the less explaining I have to do, the better off I am.  So no.  No Filofax for me.

I found this ARC customizable planner at Staples.

Of course, it's PINK.  What did you think it would be?

There is a group on FB exclusively for ARC users. At first, I was not sure about this system.  You can buy refillable packets of different kinds of paper - calendar (they are out of these right now), planner pages, project pages, etc.  You can "grow" your planner with these different size discs, too.  The drawback is if you want to add your own planner pages you make or find online, you have to buy a special paper punch that will make the right type of notches that will work with the discs.  That thing is huge and costs over $40!  And you don't really have any other use for it.  This is my biggest reservation about this whole system. I don't need one more do-hickey cluttering up my office.

I have "prettied" up some of my pages with highlighters, colorful tabs and washi tape but for the most part, the ARC pages are pretty boring.  That's coming from someone that wants bright colors slapped on everything so if you tend to like more sedated looks, you'll be fine.

This planner system is not too pricey either.  The binder cover was marked down to $11.24, the page refills run in the $4 range, and the discs are in the $3-4 range, too.  Now since my binder was marked down to a final price, that worries me.  Will I be able to find ARC supplies in the future?

Again, the planner pages are pretty bare, not only in color but also in what it gives you as far as recording information.  The calendar I was able to get is blank and only has space for a few lines of daily information.

I also found a Day Timer reversible planner for 2015 that was $15.50 through Capital Office Supplies. Again, it's PINK.  Yes, another pink planner.  Don't be shocked.

I went ahead and ordered this one just to see it in person.  It looks a lot more professional than the ARC, but I do understand that pink patented leather never really looks professional to begin with, or at least not in the profession you want people to talk about.  I also really love the pages of the calendar.  There is a space for appointments, journaling, to-do lists and expenses.  It is a small print space but it's there.  There is also a separate section for monthly priorities like birthdays or projects, and a notes section, an address book and a plastic receipts or paper holder in the back.

 

So it's still undetermined which one will win out but I think I have two very good contenders to try out.