The Trials of a Busy Mom

Author: Superpaige (Page 45 of 180)

Book Review-The Canary List

Crockett Grey is a teacher of troubled children. He has gone through a terrible tragedy and all he wants to do is start his summer vacation by forgetting his problems. Little does he know that one of his students, Jaimie Piper, is on her way to his house with a whole new, terrifying set of problems of her own. Now Crockett is in a race for his life, trying to solve Jaimie’s nightmare in order to end his own, even if that means taking on the largest religious organization on the planet!

“The Canary List” by Sigmund Brouwer started out well with compelling characters and questions. It kept me wondering what was going to happen, and I really did care. I wanted things to work out for Jamie, the 12 year old girl, and I cared that Crocket was being framed for things he didn’t do. Oh, and the sweet neighbor, Nana, was also a loveable character. I was caught up in the great beginning, and wanted to know more.

The writing was subtle and compelling, although there were many, many typos that will hopefully be corrected. It REALLY made me appreciate a good editor and proofreader because it was so distracting. Honestly, there were extra words or mistakes on nearly every other page. But, since this was an advance copy, I have to overlook those mistakes and focus on the story.

Even though this story was very Dan Brown-ish (ala the DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons) and had way too much reference to demons and corruption hidden in the Vatican for my taste, I still continued on. Normally all that supernatural stuff would turn me off of a book, but the characters and the plot drove me to continue reading.

The ending. Sigh. I have a thing about endings. I like the story to wrap up at the end. I also like the characters to be somewhat happy. Yes, I admit, I’m a sucker for a happy ending. I just like to know that those characters who have been in my head for a few days or weeks are going to go off and live happy, normal lives. I don’t want to spend any more time worrying about them. Sappy, I know. But that’s just my personal opinion. Without giving away too much about the ending here, I will say that things do get resolved and I can stop fretting about if they will all get out of the terrible situation they are in, HOWEVER, I do not enjoy a WHOLE BUNCH of twists and turns and hidden agendas right at the end of the book. As I’m reading, and I know there are only four pages left, I scan to the end and think, “How is this all going to end in just four pages?” Once all the secrets have been revealed, it seems there are even MORE secrets, and then I wonder…What the heck? So, I have to say I didn’t like the ending, but that’s just my opinion.

In all, I enjoyed the book. I wanted to read it, and wanted to know what happened to the characters. I would have liked the book to be more about Jamie and hear more from her point of view. I didn’t LOVE the book, and don’t know if I would recommend it to everyone I know, unless they were into the supernatural or kind of creepy thriller books.

This was the first book I’ve ever read by this author, and while I didn’t immediately search to see what else he had written, I would read another book by him if given the chance.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Mother’s day

Let’s face it, some Mother’s Days just aren’t that great. It’s not always the Hallmark picture of flowers and puppies.

Well, maybe not ALL Hallmark ads are great.

And husbands, as much as we love them, have to be trained. Once, when I commented about the lovely flowers my dad had given my mom, she said, “Do you think he ever gave me flowers when you kids were younger? It’s taken YEARS to train him.” And I understand. I’ve been married now for almost 19 years, and we’ve had some less than stellar mother’s days (sorry, honey. You may want to stop reading now). I remember when my first child was little and it was one of my first mother’s days as a mother. And I kept waiting for my husband to do something GREAT for me. I had bought presents for my mother AND for his mother, but hadn’t bought anything for myself, not had I really hinted about anything I would have liked as a mother’s day gift. I went to church and there were the customary sappy talks designed to make moms cry or feel guilty for yelling at their kids, and flowers for the moms. I remember looking out the window at the cemetary and seeing people decorating a grave, and I started to cry. My sweet husband asked me what was wrong. I broke down and blubbered about how he hadn’t done one thing for me for mother’s day. I tried to be nice and say that it’s ok, I didn’t really need a mother’s day present, but I couldn’t. Mother’s day was supposed to be special, wasn’t it. I’ll never forget what he said (and I’ll never let HIM forget it, either), and I’m sure a lot of new husbands have said the same thing. “You’re not my mother.” Oh, the stab.

Husbands–No, your wife is not your mother, but she is your WIFE and the Mother of your children, and as such, should be treated special on Mother’s day. She gets you a gift for Father’s Day, doesn’t she?

Thankfully we have progressed from that stage, and hubby usually remembers that it is Mother’s day. Usually. There have been a couple Mother’s days when he was out of town, and that was pretty much miserable.

But this year, I put in a big time hint. As in, I took him the ad, and said, “This is what I want for Mother’s Day.” Simple, right? Necessary.

In the morning, he and the kids made a lovely brunch. It’s better than breakfast in bed because then we all get to eat together. He even took John outside and they cut some tulips for the table. It was nice.
And the best part? There was a PRESENT. A WRAPPED present. On the table. Hooray! They didn’t all forget! Someone actually shopped! And it was the present I had asked for! Even better!

And let me tell you, I’m excited to read some books on it! So are the kids, and we later had some arguing in the car over who was going to use it, but it’s all good.

As I was helping the girls bake a cake for later, Ryan helped John write a talk for primary. A mother’s day talk. I have heretofore been the designated talk writer, so I was HAPPY to turn this one over. Both Ryan and John did a very nice on the talk, by the way.

At church, there were the customary talks on Mother’s, but none brought on the guilt. Our ward has the graduating seniors all talk on Mother’s day, and I think it’s a grand idea. Well, I do until next year, when I’ll have a senior, who will be forced to talk about Mothers. Then I don’t think I’ll like it. And fudge. Our ward gives out fudge. Yum.

Primary was the usual hectic mess, but once that was done, we had time to frost a cake and jump in the car to go to my parents’ house for dinner. Chicken enchiladas! We all ate WAY too much, and enjoyed our visit.

We hurried home to the see the finale of the Amazing Race (yes, we have priorities, people). I am Surprised by how it ended, but not disappointed.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. My hubby, in fact, summed it up nicely when he said, “Mother’s day is like opposite day. Everything we would normally do, just do the opposite, and that should cover it.”

Thanks, sweetie, for the fabulous mother’s day. Hopefully we can make your Father’s Day just as nice.

Tulip Festival

Spring has finally arrived here in Utah, and we celebrated by taking the family to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving point this week. Oh, the gorgeousness of all those flowers! It’s breathtaking!

All those tulips! Because of the late spring, not all of them are in bloom, but most of them were blooming gorgeously. My kids especially enjoyed rolling down the big hill!

There was even a little family of geese in the pond.

And it wasn’t just tulips, there were all kinds of spring flowers, beautifully and artfully arranged.

Heck, the flowers even made my kids look like they kind of like each other. No? I thought that was pushing it. I only wished that my backyard were that beautiful! It did warm my heart to see a few (gasp) dandelions there. Even thanksgiving point with all their professional gardeners can’t get rid of every single dandelion.

It was a little cold when we went on Monday night, but with the weather warming up, this weekend will be glorious! We may even go again! And if you happen to go on the weekend, there are all kinds of vendors and booths and entertainment and stuff.

And no, Thanksgiving Point did not pay me to say nice things about them. Too bad they don’t. I could have my annual pass for free.

Well, we can’t all be winners all the time.

In general, I prefer winning to not winning. Or losing. Unless we are talking about losing weight, and then I would certainly like it. Not winning makes me sad. Until the next contest, and then I will probably find hope again and enter. But today, I’m a loser. And I’m grumpy. My daughter asked, “Mom, when’s the next trip you are going to win?” and I snapped back at her, “You mean LOSE? Probably today. I’ll probably NOT WIN a trip even today. But please don’t ask me when I’m going to WIN something.”

I think I’ll stick with radio contests where the announcer can tell me “Sorry, you’re caller #9” when if only I were #10 I would win the U2 concert tickets. Then I can growl to myself and be done with it. I should avoid contests where I have to get people to vote for me. Because then I put a lot of time and energy into asking people to vote. Then they get annoyed with me because I’m just schmoozing them because I want something from them, and then, even after all my hard work, I can’t get enough votes. Then it’s a public loss. Everyone KNOWS I was trying to win something, because I had to ask them all to vote, and then they all KNOW that I didn’t win.

But what kind of an example am I setting for my kids if I am grumpy every time I lose? It’s baseball/softball season starting up now, and we have about 30 more games to get through before the season is over. If my kids got all grumpy and felt bad every time they lost a game, that would be a whole lot of grumpy people living in our house, wouldn’t it? Part of playing the game is learning how to be a good winner AND a good loser. Heck, even Jimmer lost some games, right?

So, no, I didn’t win the makeover contest. I didn’t even make it into the 15 finalists. I don’t always get what I want. Big deal. Would you like to come over and help me paint? I need to take my own advice, and “suck it up.” And I’ll go on to lose some more. Oh, hey….I think they’re asking for caller 10. Gotta go….it’s time to try to win something.

What a weekend!

Women’s Conference. The two words that conjure up images of thousands of women swarming the BYU bookstore, hundreds of pounds of BYU mint brownies, a silly skit my Mary Ellen Edmunds reminding us to turn our phones off, traipsing around campus with hundreds of other women hoping to get a seat in the JSB auditorium, and rain.

Robin came into town Wednesday night, and I picked her up at the airport after bells rehearsal. We got home by about 11:30. Thursday dawned bright and early, and we were out of here by 8:00 to make the trek to Provo and the hike to the Marriott Center. And for once it wasn’t raining or freezing. In fact, it turned out to be a beautiful day! Shock, I know!

I went to a wonderful class on parenting, and then hustled over to the HFAC for a class on patience, only to be greeted by a line that went out the building, down the sidewalk, made a turn, went in front of the Wilkinson Center, and up the ramp. Seriously. Perhaps this line IS the class, we joked in the line. I wish I had a picture, because it was QUITE the line. The class was supposed to start at 12:30, and at 12:25, I hadn’t moved forward all that much in line, and pretty much knew that I wouldn’t be attending this particular class on patience, unless they had an overflow room or were broadcasting it somewhere else. I guess all those ladies at women’s conference need to learn patience. Or at least they think they do. I was pleased that there were no impatient riots or shoving, especially when most of us were turned away.

Knowing that any class I wanted to get into had already started and was therefore full, I wandered over to the bookstore to do some browsing. I eventually ended up in the MARB where they have service and listening stations. I decided to sew “courage capes” while listening to a wonderful talk on being women of God. It’s fun to do something productive while listening, but then I have no notes. I stayed for the next class and finished two more capes. Such fun.

By the last session of the day, my brain is pretty much dead tired. But we sat through the talks on courageous and wonderful examples of early Relief Society sisters.

Robin and I had decided to stay the night in Provo instead of driving home. Then we could go to the evening of service and the fun concert put on at Women’s conference on Thursday night. But first we had to check into our hotel and ditch some of our stuff. We ended up sidetracked at the Spaghetti factory enjoying a FABULOUS meal. I sent a text to Ryan, who did not appreciate the fact that I was stuffing my face on Matzithra cheese pasta while he was attending the elementary school band concert. Sorry, honey. After our pasta binge, we checked in to our comfort inn, and flopped on the couch. We had every intention of getting right back up and going to the evening of service. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it. We did make it in time for the evening performance by the Shadow Mountain artists. But by the time that was over, we were SO tired, we wanted nothing more than for our heads to hit the pillows.

Unfortunately, no sooner had we snuggled into our beds, then our raucous neighbors decided it was time to run, shout, and slam doors. What the heck, people? It’s 11:30! Go to sleep. It took more than one call to the front desk and some asking to please be quiet before they calmed down. Some people!

In the morning, I woke up so dizzy I could barely turn my head. I made it to the bathroom, but felt like I might throw up from the nausea. I came quickly back to bed, and told Robin that I didn’t think I was going to be going to classes right away. I fell quickly into a nap. We worked it out so that Robin took the car and went to the conference, and my sweet hubby came and picked me up and took me back home, where I spent the rest of the day napping. I felt bad that I was missing a day of wonderful talks, and also that I hadn’t yet gotten my BYU brownie! But I was so wiped out and needed sleep to help me feel better. By evening I was feeling mostly put back together so I felt like I could possibly function.

Saturday morning dawned with 3 or 4 inches of snow. Seriously? I guess that kills our garage sale possibilities. But Robin came with me to go and get my bountiful basket, and then we drove around with hope in our hearts. Maybe, just Maybe, there would be some brave souls hosting garage sales. We did indeed find two garage sales and scored some cheap scores. My favorite–a mask/cape combination that looks pretty much like Megamind but with a green head.

John thought that was fun.

Later in the day we attended a cousin’s baptism and family party while Robin went to the temple, and then later we spoiled ourselves with our annual “women’s conference pedicures”.

Sunday we all attended church, and then had a nice dinner. We invited Julene and Italo to join us, and it was all delicious! Later, as we were watching Joe verses the Volcano (can you believe Robin had NEVER seen that movie?), I checked facebook and saw the Bin Laden news. We couldn’t believe that after all this time, they had finally gotten him.

It was quite a memorable weekend!

It’s VOTING time!

Friends, I posted about my entry to win a room makeover from the fabulous Mandi Here. Well, the time is now come to go wild and vote! You just need to go to Mandi’s blog HERE and cast your vote for #40. That’s my post about my boring, colorless bedroom. And then after you have voted, you can post a link to the contest on facebook and ask your friends to vote for me, you can post on your blog and ask your readers to vote for me, and you can call your mom and ask HER to vote for me (that’s what I’ll be doing, at least). You don’t have to have a blog to vote (at least I don’t think so) and you don’t have to have a facebook account to vote, you just need an email address. And I could REALLY use your votes, cause I totally would love to have a bedroom makeover!!!
Voting runs from midnight tonight (April 30) until May 2nd.

Thanks!!

My crazy, mixed up morning

I woke up wondering how I got out of China and what day it was. Seriously. As soon as I emerged, bleary eyed, from my bedroom, daughter #2 accosts me with, “Mom, you need to drive me again this morning so I can be to band by 7:00.”
“No.”
“But MOM, it’s concert week!”
“What? Where’s the note? When is the concert?” I’m really out of the loop, apparently.
So, I throw some shoes and a jacket on over my pajamas, write out a bunch of lunch money checks, make sure John has some honey-nut cheerios, and get in the car. It’s pouring rain. No, it’s snowing. Wait, isn’t it the end of April? As I drive her through the snow turning to hail, I see the Hawaiian ice shed is now up. Am I in some kind of alternate reality? Nothing makes sense this morning!

Daughter number three had better dress VERY warmly, as her class is going to Camp Floyd for a fieldtrip today, and Daughter number 3 is supposed to have a walking fieldtrip to the junior high to see Fiddler on the Roof. “if I were a rich man….didle, deedle, deedle, digger doodle deedle deedle do…”

And daughter number 1 proudly shows me her learners permit. It’s crazy, I tell you!

And I promise I don’t drink or do drugs. It just feels that way.
That must have been one strong episode of Castle last night.

Marvelous Makeover by Mandi!

bamboo wood floors; french doors; muted colors; vaulted ceiling traditional bedroom

Let’s talk about the bedroom, shall we? The bedroom is supposed to be “the sanctuary”, the “oasis of calm”, “where the magic happens” and all that. Right.

Wakefield Residence modern bedroom

When we got married, we used my husband’s old WATERBED that he had used for about 10 years. A waterbed? Really? You know how much fun it is to be pregnant and try to get out of a waterbed? Yeah. Real fun. So when we moved into our current house almost 10 years ago, we did not bring the waterbed with us. It felt like totally luxury to be sleeping in a REAL bed, on a REAL mattress. Not the highest quality furniture, I assure you. We were moving into a bigger house with a bigger mortgage, and at the time of our closing and move, my husband was unemployed. That’s right. Unemployed. As in, we really had no way to PAY for the nice new house, and were living on faith that he would soon find a job.

He DID eventually find a job, and we were always able to pay our mortgage. And as the family has grown and changed, I’ve had fun painting the kids’ bedrooms, and even painted our family room and living room. But NOT the bedroom. Funny, I just thought of the Sandra Boynton Book, But Not the Hippopotamus right there. You know, how all the cats and rats in their new running hats….
book

I LOVE that book, don’t you? Well, that’s how our bedroom has felt. Every other room gets some kind of paint job or work done on it, but the bedroom is left out.

It’s not like I haven’t TRIED. I’ve moved the bed around the room, trying to find the ‘right’ place for it. I’ve even made curtains. I’ve brought in a bookcase, taken out that bookcase when I needed it for the girls’ room, brought in a cute little rocking chair that I inherited from my grandma (but it just seems to be a place to hang clothes on it, let’s be honest). I’ve tried. But I can’t seem to commit to anything. I haven’t figured out what I WANT that room to look like. I’m not complaining about my room. We have a bed and dressers and a tv. It’s functional, just not fabulous.

bed

But there’s no STYLE. There’s no PERSONALITY. There’s no COLOR.

Nate Berkus would tell me to paint the walls a nice soft blue or green and then go with neutral or white bedding, right? But would he tell me how to position my bed with the windows that aren’t symmetrical, or what to do with the shelf on the wall, or how to make the room really SPECIAL?
Yes, I’m sure he would. But sadly, Nate has not volunteered to come out and do a bedroom makeover.

BUT– We have the next best thing! Mandi at Vintage Revival has been called the MacGyver of DIYers. I discovered Mandi when she made this teapot lamp on Studio 5.

I think she can make anything look pretty, and she doesn’t seem to be afraid to tackle ANY kind of project.

She could probably make a quilt out of gum wrappers, make a sofa out of old tires and patio furniture, and I’m sure she could do WONDERS with my bedroom.
Because talented Mandi is holding a CONTEST! A contest, wherein the winner of said contest (hopefully ME) gets to have the lovely Mandi come to their home, and makeover a chosen room. I could have MANDI in my bedroom! Wait, that didn’t exactly come out right. Mandi could help ME decorate our bedroom!

We’d be all painting together and doing some kind of fun glazing technique on the dresser, making window treatments, and I would feed her brownies and run and get a Cafe Rio chicken salad for her while she’s working hard designing and making something MARVELOUS out of my bland bedroom. We could chat about our mutual love for Nate (while I have attended Nate’s show, she has actually been a GUEST on his show! How cool is that?!), and be BFFs forever! And you know, if she saw other boring areas in my house that were crying out for some kind of cool clock or fireplace mantel or….something…I sure wouldn’t stop her from taking over my entire house, because I’m sure she could do wonders with it!

So all I’ve got to do is win this contest! Easy, right? Not so easy. This is where YOU come in. This post is linked up to the Vintage Revivals Contest page and then, once the voting is open, from April 30 to May 4th, we all vote for me! Perhaps through our collective charm and charisma, we can get all our friends to vote for me, and our friend’s moms to vote for me, and that one creepy friend who stalks your blog to vote for me. If you feel inclined to post this on your blog and ask your readers to vote for me–all the better!

Let’s get Mandi here to put some pizzaz in that bedroom! (Again–sounds a little weird, but you know what I mean.)

New life for an old piece of furniture

I have had this dresser for about forever. Seriously. I remember it from when I was a kid. And, when we had a couple kids and needed more and more dressers, I inherited this one back from my parents. I do not know how old it it, but it’s got a couple of coats of paint on it.

I do know that unlike a lot of our furniture, it’s made of wood. Not just particle board with a little bit of wood on the front. There’s a tag on the back, but I can’t read a date or anything, but let’s just say it’s old.

A few days ago, a received a REALLY COOL sample in the mail. I had signed up with Valspar Paint for a sample, and this is what they sent me. A little jar of my chosen color, also a mini roller, and a $5 coupon for valspar paint. I had chosen a light blue, “beach sparkle,” I think it was called. I didn’t want to paint a wall, though, I had ordered it with this dresser in mind.

I started with a Mr. Clean Magic eraser and scrubbed the heck out of the piece. Yes, I know–real painters use sandpaper. But I am not a professional or anything, so I just cleaned it, not sanded it. I started with only the top, because I didn’t know if I would have enough of the sample paint to do the whole dresser. There was also some tape and labels that had to be peeled off. You can tell I was really careful with this dresser in the past, since I had put labels that said “shirts”, “underwear and socks” and “pants and skirts” on the drawers. Peeling those off took off some paint, but hey, I don’t care so much.

I went to town.

There I was, in my pajamas, (what? You don’t paint in your pajamas? For some reason I do my best painting in my pajamas. Once the kids are gone and I’m figuring out what to do with my day, that’s when I get the inspiration to paint. And I don’t want to paint after I’ve had a shower, so I end up just painting in my pajamas. Ok, so I’m weird that way), blasting some Foo Fighters and Glee, and painting. I found a screw driver and took off the handles (different color underneath, but I’m not sure if it was from fading, corrosion from the handles, or if the last painter just went around the handles), and painted the drawers. I had JUST enough paint to do a whole second coat!

I love that spring blue color, don’t you?

I wasn’t sure what to do with the handles. It would be fun to put on fun new handles, but that would mean a trip to Home Depot or Lowes or something, and then what if I didn’t get the right size? So, I thought I would just paint the handles and put them back on. And, lookie there, I have some black spray paint. So, it’s a done deal.

I spray painted the handles black, then gave them a coat of gloss, put a coat of polyurethane on the dresser, and BAM!

Now, if I were to do another dresser this way, I would make sure to take it to the garage or basement to paint it, not leave it there smelling the kids’ rooms up with the smell of polyurethane. When I came home from rehearsal, I could smell the smell as soon as I walked in the house, and I couldn’t believe the kids were sleeping in the same room as the smelly dresser. So we moved the whole thing into the laundry room and shut the door, so it could continue drying for the rest of the night, and stop stinking up the bedroom. But by morning, the smell was mostly gone, and it was ready to be assembled.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how it turned out! I love it so much, in fact, that I’d like to steal it for somewhere else in the house, not waste it on a kid who doesn’t even put his clothes away. I think it would look really cute in the entryway or in the kitchen with tablecloths in it.

But for now I’m just happy with how it turned out. It’s not perfect, and there are some poly globs on the top. If I were a professional (and remember, I am NOT), I would sand that top layer and then put another layer of poly on the whole thing just to make it more smooth, shiny, and durable. The best part? Free. The paint was free, the dresser was free, the handles were free. I didn’t even have to go to the store ONCE for this project! And it gives me hope and inspiration. I could paint EVERYBODY’S old garage sale/hand me down dressers and make them ALL pretty and cute! I said I could. Could. Not that I have to.

How many people do you know who get exited when looking at their reciept?

I am loving Wal*Mart right now! It seems they will price match anything and everything, and, since there’s a Ridley’s Market that does double coupons on Tuesday, WalMart in Utah County will ALSO do double coupons on Tuesday. I went last Tuesday to check it out, after seeing word of this fun even on one of the coupon/money saving blogs. They said they would double anything up to 50 cents, so that the 50 cent coupon is worth $1. So, I got out my small coupons and went in. I also had a couple of larger value coupons for some personal item stuff, and since the WalMart price was good on those, I went ahead and used the coupons.

Imagine my shock and surprise when the nice check-out lady doubled ALL the coupons, even the $2.00 ones! Can I get an “Amen”? Oh, yeah. Now, our little WalMart in already an anomaly in the world of WalMarts. It’s never crowded. I’m not kidding. I never have to wait for a check out, and if I do, there’s only one person in front of me. It’s new, it’s clean, and it’s only about 2 miles from my house.

So, today I took a bunch more coupons, and spent some time figuring things out (couponing takes times, friends, don’t think you can just rush in there and save a bundle with coupons without putting in a little time), and when I checked out, I was EXTREMELY pleased that she doubled all of my coupons….AGAIN.

I had roughly $24 worth of coupons, and they doubled all those, that I got almost $50 off my haul. All that stuff on the counter (and you might notice I have a couple of baseball items–no coupons on those, and that added about $13 right there) and a few produce items without coupons, and I discovered the I needed bleach, since the one I had expired in 2008) only cost me….

$93.01. Probably not as good as you thought it would be if you had watched that extreme coupon show about ladies who buy truckloads of groceries for $4, but I only have one newspaper, and I haven’t bought any coupons off the internet.

This picture shows little different angle, and leaves out the basket of fruit, which I did NOT purchase at Wal*mart today, but from my bountiful basket on Saturday.

I hope they do the double coupons again EVERY week. On some items, it’s not worth it to use the coupon and buy the name brand, but sometimes, and especially if they double it, it IS worth it.

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