March has been an interesting month for me. I’ve spent much of it sick, or dealing with sick children. I had a terrible virus toward the beginning of the month that gave me a six day 101-102 degree fever. While I was busy taking two weeks to get over that, Chris and Maggie got it, and Maggie spiked a 104 degree fever while Chris languished for days. During all of this, my completely wonderful parents came for a visit. We haven’t been blessed with each other’s company for two and a half years.

I was sick the entire visit. This was in some ways a mixed blessing. Usually before my parents visit I get very neurotic and try to clean, organize, and remodel every inch of our home within my power. I am on edge. I am stupid in my proud desires to look put together and overly competent. When this trip was planned I began forming a menu, a few low key but fun events, and some very special events. Then I got sick. I assumed that having gotten sick five days prior to when my parents would be arriving that I would be well on my way to healthy before I had to collect them from the airport. About forty-eight hours before their plane landed, I had faced the possibility that I might not be able to get absolutely everything done in time. Twenty-four hours later, I succumbed to the fact that there was simply no way I was going to pull off anything even remotely resembling a clean house seeing as how I was too sick to accomplish anything. I also hadn’t been to the store in days, so the gourmet dinners were looking pretty hopeless as well.

I picked them up from the airport. I was 101 degrees. I was also brain dead and had not remembered my debit card, cash, or military ID. The journey home required gas, a cash toll and an ID card. Amazingly, I did have my licence along for the ride. I have never been so unprepared for this trip in my life. I have also never been so sick that I almost wasn’t embarrassed to, immediately upon their arrival, ask my parents for money. At that point, I gave up any hope of dignified grown-up-ed-ness and let my parents take care of me for most of the remainder of the trip. They cleaned, shopped, cooked, installed shelves and hung stuff on walls, loved my children and let me sleep. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of being taken care of. I loved not being judged for my weakness, but being loved and respected, even when so feverish I hardly made sense. Chris and I have been making plans to try to move home to North Dakota when our time in the military is up in a year, and I wondered if maybe this visit would set me off to the idea. The exact opposite happened. If I could pull off moving to ND tomorrow, I would.

I have been away from home for so long that I forgot all of the wonderful things that make my family who they are. I love how if my parents say they will do something, they do. You never have to question their integrity. I love how they are always busy, always working to improve everything they are around be it people or a dirty stove. I love how my parents see a need and just fill it. I get so much joy watching them be grandparents; they are firm but patient, wiser and gentler after years of practicing on my generation. My children could use that kind of influence regularly. I love my parents. Sure, there are a lot of goofy things about them too, we are a family of quirks, no doubt, but there is just so much goodness I want to wrap myself up in it.

I have the pleasure of reviewing the book Healthy Child, Healthy World, a book put out by the non profit company of the same name. May I just say: What a resource! I would rarely advise someone I didn’t know to run out and buy a book, but this one really applies to us all: parents, yuppies, hippies, swingers, religious, non religious and those deep thinking people who wonder why new carpet smells so bad. This book is for you. It is about quality of life.

When most of the world considers going green or being environmentally aware, I think the first thoughts that usually come to mind are how we are using our natural resources. Did we plant a tree this year? Did that last soda can get filed in the garbage bin or was it recycled? Will we be buying a hybrid or a gas guzzler in the future? All valid, important questions and concerns, but without really asking the scary question, “What kinds of pesticides, chemicals and other toxins am I routinely subjecting my body to in the name of progress?”

This book answers all of these questions and more. Now, living in our modern, disposable society, where we’ve given up quality for the sake of mass production and the lure of the low price tag, I’m sure there are moments where we all wonder what we’ve gained. It is eye opening to really take a look at what we’ve settled for.

My eyes were opened when my daughter’s skin cracked, bistered and bled in disposable diapers.

My eyes were opened farther when my son’s behavior was radically altered when he ingested red dye, a common food additive.

My eyes opened when I made the chemical connection between a scented candle and my migraine headache.

Now, disposable diapers, attractive food and pretty smelling candles are all lovely things at first glance, but what do we have really? Have we stopped to ask why we’re putting chemicals banned in the 80s from women’s tampons onto the bums of our babies? Have we considered that everything we take into our bodies, by ingestion, breathing, or absorption will affect us, and will affect our children at even greater rates because they are smaller?

I was not a very green person until I became a parent. As I slowly noticed different environmental choices affecting my children, a light went on and I started making changes to see if I could do better. I love the Earth, but I admit my first goal is not to preserve her, it is to preserve my children and to have a happy, healthy family.

Going green can be pretty overwhelming, and I admit that on the scale of greens, I’m still a pretty light green. I am slowly making changes that make us just a little greener and cleaner every day. This is what it is all about. A little education paired with a few small goals can lead to some huge changes and improvements in your quality of life. Choose an area that you feel the most strongly about, be it buying organic food, replacing carpet with a healthier floor, or even simple changes like buying a houseplant to improve indoor air quality or changing to compact florescent light bulbs to reduce energy consumption. It is in these small triumphs that we find huge success.

I loved this book; its practical, pragmatic approach to gradual changes for the better really hit home, because that is what we have been making at my house for the past few years. It takes a little more time, a little more effort, but my kids are worth it.

Good Kitty.

Chores.

Landscaping Fun.

Library Easter Egg Hunt.

OMSH Coloring Un-Contest Efforts.

Rest.

Last night I finally got up the nerve to tackle my children’s closet. Now, this closet, unlike all of the other reasonably navigable storage spaces in my home, is basically a dumping ground for children’s toys and outgrown clothes that I do not feel like dealing with in the present moment. When I toss things in there, it is usually in a fairly organized manner. The trouble begins when my children decide they want something out, know I’m going to say no, and decide to break into the locked closet using only a Q-tip and their mad MacGyver skills. (I promise you, there is no hyperbole in the aforementioned statement.)

Every time they break in, it is inevitable that the object they want will be located on the top shelf. This means that in order to climb the shelves, it will be necessary for them to knock everything in their way onto the ground. Even after the pile has grown to where I cannot open the closet door, they will continue to climb in, hovering precariously over a heap of stuffed animals and legos as they balance a child-sized horse on top of the train table and do circus clown tricks trying to maneuver a forbidden Risk game off of the top shelf. (Once again- not a speck of hyperbole. I birthed crazy people.)

I enlisted the help of the entire family to get the room sorted. Chris reassembled the train table, I threw toys in the trash and donation box, and Jonas sorted the things I was allowing him to keep. Maggie just flitted from project to project, occasionally making herself useful throwing something away. The closet emptied in layers. The top held dress up clothes and small boxes. The next layer were the bags and bags of outgrown clothes. Finally, toward the bottom I found stuffed animals and all of the little pieces of games, puzzles, old action figure paraphernalia that collect in corners and multiple like rabbits. I also found mouse poop. A lot of mouse poop.

Several months ago I had found just a few tiny droppings in the closet. They were dried and old, and there was absolutely no sign of a rodent anywhere. There is also no other place in our house where I have ever seen even the tiniest sign of a mouse. Ants and spiders by the boatload, yes, but never a rodent. I put the thought out of my mind. Apparently, I shouldn’t have.

As I removed the toys from the floor I began to wonder just how likely it was that there was a live mouse in the closet with me. I began to expect to see something. When I found a pile of stuffed animals in the corner covered in stuffed animal batting and fluff, I realized I had found a nest. I gingerly picked up one animal after another, shaking them each ever so slightly, and then tossed them into the trash. After about three of these, I found it. It was a soft, cuddly stuffed lamb with a huge hole in it. As I moved the lamb, a tiny brown thing streaked to the other side of the closet and then back again. I jumped about three feet in the air, doing a spastic dance trying all at once to keep tabs on the mouse and keep my feet off of the floor. As I was engaged in my panic maneuvers I began to yell out loud to myself, “WHAT AM I DOING? I AM NOT AFRAID OF MICE!”

Chris, who had watched this bizarre choreography commented, “Are you sure? You’re jumping around a lot.”

He was getting a kick out of this. I ran to the kitchen to get a container to capture the mouse. When I returned, I headed into the closet wanting to shut the door and trap the mouse inside, but the light was burned out so I had Chris replace the bulb. Ok, I’m pretty sure I shouted, “IT’S DARK! I NEED LIGHT! I’M NOT SHUTTING MYSELF IN THERE IN THE DARK! Once there was light, I trapped myself in the closet with the mouse, and then ran out again yelling, “I’M NOT DOING THIS WITHOUT SHOES! I NEED SHOES!” Chris just shook his head.

I put on my shoes, grabbed my tupperware mouse catcher and shut myself in the closet. The mouse did laps around the bookshelf, hurdles over the handful of stray toys and shot from one side of the closet to the other, at one point brushing right up against my arm because I was that close. As soon as I figured out his pattern, I crouched, ready to spring and nab him. I knew he had only to finish this lap around the bookshelf and then he would run almost directly into my trap. I hovered, I sprang, and the mouse ran pell mell under the closet door, through the kid’s room and into my scrapbooking room where he may or may not have exited out the garage.

Because I wasn’t sure where the mouse ended up, the entire scraproom got cleaned. If the mouse is still in here- he is under the washer and dryer, and survived the unceremonious poking around of the broomstick. At any rate, I brought in the cat and instructed her that it was now time to earn her keep. She’s dozing on the computer desk, oblivious to all, as I type. I, on the other hand, am hyper aware of the floor and every spot or toy in my peripheral vision is highly suspect. The closet has been sanitized, my hands have been washed multiple times. Hantavirus fantasies abound, and the children were given a big lecture about sneaking food into their room complete with the great visual of the destroyed lamb being used as a threat against their much loved stuffed animals. The closet is being kept open, and I go in every few hours to shake the shelf where the mouse was hiding, just in case.

Yesterday I taught some scrapbook classes. I so enjoy doing this, partly because I enjoy sharing the craft, but mostly because I always seem to have such a great group of women to teach! I have been so impressed with their creativity and pro-active good natures. I meet so many amazing individuals in my line of work and I feel very blessed because of it.

Yesterday, however, held a very bitter surprise. I was preparing to teach my Cosmo Cricket blackboard class, which is based around the princess album I created for Maggie. I love this album. It is one of my favorite things that I have made, and so special to Maggie because it is all about her princess dress and crown. Imagine my disgust and disappointment when I discovered that it had been stolen from the store.

Now, I don’t know what kind of person it takes to steal someone’s personal scrapbook. I don’t know if they just have no sense of collective responsibility and goodness, or if they function out of jealousy for another’s talent (jeez, just take the class, I’d have helped you make your own), or if they are just mean spirited. I don’t know if it was desperation, entitlement, or flat out meanness, but I do know that it was very wrong. It also makes it darn hard to teach a class.

Most people would agree that stealing is wrong. It isn’t a tough concept. People like to keep the stuff they have and know that it is safe. Stealing from shopkeepers is wrong because it makes it harder for them to turn a profit, and it forces them to raise prices for the rest of us. But it isn’t usually personal. It makes a shopkeeper angry to be stolen from, but I don’t think it hurts their feelings quite like stealing a piece of artwork, or a family heirloom or treasured item. It doesn’t make their daughter sad to be missing item 100634 out of isle 9 the way it might make her sad to find out that her special photo book was taken. So this is personal. That just makes it more wrong, doesn’t it?

You may think that this is a fluke thing, that it doesn’t happen all of the time, but you would be wrong. I know many designers who have had a precious piece of art taken when it has been on display. You may think that the person doing the stealing must be one of the unwashed miscreants of society, but you would be wrong again. When I attended CHA, many, many booths had their designer’s work literally tied to the booth just to make it more difficult to steal. Do you know who attends CHA? Store owners. Scrapbook retailers. People who routinely get stolen from and who you think might have the concept of how treasured a scrapbook might be to someone. Despite this fact, many, many fabulous pieces of personal artwork volunteered to be on display by people who support these companies mysteriously walk away each time. Even pieces that have been tied down occasionally disappear, meaning that people had to work to steal them. It boggles the mind.

I am trying to be forgiving. I am trying to tell myself that I must be pretty damn awesome to have people want to steal my art. But mostly, I’m just hoping that whoever took it might be willing to sneak it back into the store. Leave it in the bathroom, or in a back corner somewhere. Slip it into a basket of ribbon or onto a paper rack in a quiet corner. Just make it reappear. I really want it back.

Seriously, why have a cold when you can have a different sort of virus that morphs into something invloving a 101 degree temperature, eh? Doesn’t that sound like fun?

It’s been a good two years since I’ve been this sick. And I have to teach all Saturday. And pick my parents up from the airport. And be perky.

I get weird when I have a fever.

Can’t think straight.

How about some good news? Tell me something good, please.

I may be a wheezy, hacking, sniffling piece of horse puckey- but I can still scrap! I made this mini album, sort of springboarding off of the card that I made, taking it farther, while still keeping things fairly simple. The goal was to keep the photos clean and linear and let the stamping and the song lyrics do the rest.

I used Inque Boutique stamps, Basic Grey’s new Sugared paper, Cat Stevens song lyrics, and the album is wood made by Kaiser Kraft. As always, you can click to embiggen the photos.

Yesterday I didn’t feel so good. Now, I had just finished cleaning the garage (allergic to dust), and then weeded the flowerbed (allergic to grass and weeds), so I figured allergies were to blame. This morning I got up and took the cat to the vet, where he proceeded to help me out by shaving hunks of matted fur off of her neck. (The cat, she needs to improve her grooming ability. More time licking, less time sleeping and making my eyes itch). Since I am quite allergic to cat fur, and had pretty much bathed in it, I credited my crappy symptoms to the allergies once again. After all, when you’ve just mixed dust, grass and cat, you’ve pretty much told Mother Nature to take her best shot. You shouldn’t be surprised when you end up with a shiner. Nature likes to win.

About an hour later I had a fever and glands the size of peaches. Large, viral peaches. Yum. I also had 5 children running around the house, a package to take to the post office and enough work to keep me busy for a good five hours. I also have an appointment of some sort or another every single day this week and hours of work culminating in my teaching a full day of classes and picking up my parents from the airport. Of course I can do all of this feeling like horse puckey.

My only question is this: Who’s going to clean the house? That I’d like to know.