{ musings }

WHAT a WEDNESDAY!

mommy...
(poke poke)
MOMMY.
(poke poke POKE)
M O M M Y....wake up!  I want some juuuuuuuuice!
(who needs an alarm clock with an excited 5 year old in the house?!)

And so began my frantic and fun Wednesday!  After making breakfasts and packing lunches, supervising the packing of backpacks, brushing of hair and teeth, making of beds and tidying of rooms, showering and readying myself, I packed up the girls and delivered them to school at 7:55am.  I then swung back home for a quick pit-stop and to pack up the car with show and tell for Cori and a trunk full of stuff for Girl Scouts.

8:40am I busted through the Starbucks drive-through for two extra hot, grande, sugar-free, non-fat vanilla lattes (yes, we even like the same coffee drink, exactly!) and a large glass of ice-water with which to wash down my prednisone and antibiotics (more on this later in post).

9:05am totally blasted by the correct offramp to Cori's house, even though I can usually get there without opening my eyes past a squint.  Took the long way there, surprising even her when she actually beat me to her house after dropping off her wee punks.  Spent a delightful 4+ hours scheming and sewing  and chatting and giggling with the best pal and partner a girl could ever hope for...the two of us together actually makes a pretty decent WHOLE brain! She taught me how to use a rotary cutter and *hopefully* if I am on my best behavior, next week she will teach me how to use her serger! Weeeeee!

1:25pm packed my car back up with lots of goodies and a shopping list of supplies for more Lulubellas surprises.  Zoomed home (30 minutes) for another pit-stop and to pack up snacks for 15 hungry girl scouts.

2:10pm met my co-leaders in the school parking lot and schlepped 3 HUGE boxes of craft supplies, documents, notebooks, patches and snacks to our designated meeting room.  Set up the room and went to escort the tiny Daisy Scouts to their VERY FIRST Girl Scout meeting.  (Are they not the CUTEST little things ever?!)

3:00pm after pottying and hand-washing with 13 Kindergartners and 3 fourth graders (my able Junior Scouts and helpful assistants!), we proceeded to have the most magical first meeting ever!  Seriously, if I was a little girl...this meeting would be my dream come true for everything I wanted Daisy Scouts to be!  I guess that is why I volunteered to be the leader...so I could live out my fantasies one more time!  The girls made darling little notebooks with paper doll representations of themselves as Daisy Scouts, we did a nice little investiture ceremony in which each little girl received a certificate and I pinned her Scout pins on her smock, and then the Junior Scouts taught them a couple of songs.  We ended with a big Girl Scout Circle, a group hug and a lot of *glowing* little faces so proud to go home and show off their new Daisy status!  For as much work as it is (and it is a LOT of work), days like today make it all totally worhtwhile!

4:25pm get home, unpack, rifle through the fridge for dinner-fixins and start homework patrol.

7:35pm  kids fed, bathed, homework done, kitchen cleaned.  I read a few stories and share a few snuggles, then leave each in their own beds to quietly read and go to sleep.  Time for me to hit the assembly lines.   Cori and I just put up a bunch of new Ephemera Snack Packs in our Etsy shop...so I sorted out all the goodies, packed them up real pretty and got them ready to send to their new homes.  (Part of me always cringes when I pack this stuff up...I love it SO MUCH!).

8:50pm  time for some sinus relief.  If you've known me for any amount of time, you know I have had a life-time struggle with horrid allergies, and in spite of a massive team of medical care-givers, a 20+ year regimine of meds and shots, naturopathic, homeopathic, Western and Traditional Chinese Medecine...I still suffer.  My WORST season begins as soon as the temperatures hit 100 or below and lasts all the way through the end of Spring (until it gets kiln-hot again).  For over a year (knock on wood) I have avoided all major head-cold/virus/sinus sicknesses - even when my kids and The Hubs fell prey, so when I finally got hit about a week ago, it wasn't really a surprise.   

So, here is my daily regimine: Zyrtec 10mg, Rhinocort AQ, and nasal irrigation 2-3 times a day.  Yup...you heard me.  I have to flush out my sinuses at least twice a day with a Neti Pot and my "special solution" (5 oz warm water, 1 tsp Sea Salt, 3 oz Alkalol) in order to keep from getting MASSIVELY sick.  It sucks, but this is my sinus survival potion.  The Alkalol feels and smells a tiny bit like pouring Pine-Sol into your head (pine, menthol, cinnamon, spearmint...all powerful mucous busters) but if you have sinus problems...TRY IT!  As an added bonus, everything in your world will smell pine-fresh for about an hour afterwards!  ;-) 

Unfortunately, I slacked off a couple of weeks ago and am now ALSO taking massive antibiotics and steroids to get my sinuses to open back up and let the junk out, but such is my punishment.  I am feelign better already, and it CERTAINLY didn't slow me down much.  Ha!

Today will be no less hectic:  2 different school related meetings, a trip to the fabric store to buy 12 more yards of muslin (WAIT till you see!!) and a mani/pedi for me!  A trip to the dry-cleaners and some packing, and then this busy Mama is heading out on Friday to our place in V-E-G-A-S for a girls weekend with my dear pal Jennifer.  No more blog posts for a couple of days...but then, OH MY!  The stories I will no doubt have....

Brownie New Years Resolution Project

One of the best parts of being a Brownie leader to 3rd Grade girls is that I occasionally get to unleash my craftiness on them!  I only do it "full force" about one time a year, but they seem to like it!  Here's what we're doing at our next meeting on January 10th.  It is a little book for them to do some goal setting and resolution making.  We parents are finding that this age is a tough one for most of the girls...the girls (8-9 yeas old) seem to be hitting a growth spurt (physically, emotionally and mostly, socially) and a lot of them are struggling with some challenges as a result.  I am hoping that this will lead to some positive goal setting mostly in the areas of what it means to be a good friend.

(Melissa Frances accordion book, Treehouse papers, Bazzill CS, Bazzill Boshers & flowers, Karen Foster Princess Brads & Scrapper's Floss and a whole mess of die cuts I made the other day at Scrapbooks Etc.)

Other than that....yesterday I had a couple of hours to myself, so I made a run to the camera shop to check out sling style camera bags for the trip.  I ended up with this one, after carefully considering this one.  Thankfully, my local pro shop employs one fabulous female sales-person who (as a woman) has first-hand experience on wearing a sling bag with (ahem!) boobs.  While there, hooked up my pal with a neoprene cover for her camera (everyone should have one of these...they ROCK, especially if you're like us and occassionally toss our cameras into a large handbag - aack!).

(By the way...check out what that same pal has been doing on her BLOG...she is INSANE creative!)

I am still working on the final touches to my boxes ready to be shipped to Paris and I promise, I will get that last project teaser up here soon!  :-)

SURVIVER 2: Camp Willow Springs, Redux

On Friday, immediately after school, a couple of my stalwart co-leaders and I packed up two SUVs and five 3rd Grade Brownies (8-9 year olds) and headed off to our troop's first official Girl Scout Encampment.  We've done camp before, but it has always been a 1:1 ratio with the girls and their moms...this time a couple of the girls went mom-less...and let me just tell you about how proud I am of these girls!  They were champs!!  There were a few tummy aches, not much sleep and LOTS of campfire fun (and smoke) but we all emerged victorious (if not filthy) on Sunday afternoon.

(Alexis, Emma, Jessi, Brianna and Kelsey...don't they look cute in our matching pink hoodies?)

The weather was gorgeous (high 30's when we awoke, but quickly warmed to 60's-70's during the day), the food was pretty good (the s'mores were excellent), and the girls did pretty well "getting along" with each other and the other campers.  Our camp unit was filled with a total of 40 leaders and scouts, most of whom were from an elementary school a few miles away from our own school. The entire encampment was over 200+ strong! Our kids were among the youngest, but darned if WE didn't get the first campfire going and kicked some major booty in the song-leading department! 

I hung in pretty tight, considering I was doping myself with serious antibiotics and steroids for a fierce sinus infection AND began "that time of the month" while on the trip.  After getting only about an hour of sleep the first night (tummy aches, sore throats, numerous bathroom trips and a few wild rumpuses being held by the 4th graders next door), my wonderful co-leaders let me sneak in an hour nap while they hiked the girls up and down a few hills on Saturday... that made a HUGE difference in my outlook! ;-)  Saturday night's sleep was MUCH better...so much better, in fact, that I was awoken by my OWN daughter who had a charlie horse and was simply mortified that I was snoring (she didn't seem to realize that she and about half the other people in the cabin with us were ALSO snoring)!! 

The hi-light of the trip for our girls?  The SWAPS!  A big thing in Girl Scouting these days is trading little hand-made "pins" at Girl Scout events.  Our girls each made about 15 swaps to trade with new friends, and each girl came home with a hat full of darling little "mementos" from their new sisters in Scouting.  Cute stuff.

Next time, we hope the REST of the troop will join us!  Did you hear that Macy, Rachel, Lexi, Sarah, Tiffany & Kellie????