7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

Tomorrow is Joshua's birthday party, which means today is a really fun day for me. What better way to spend a Friday than cleaning bathrooms, dusting, mopping, and trying to make my yard look like Sanford & Son don't live here anymore? Oh and baking and decorating a birthday cake.

2.

The downside to living in a tiny town is that it becomes necessary to plan things in advance. So, for instance, one would learn in plenty of time that there is nowhere to buy party favor bags or decent things with which to fill said bags. If I was a better planner, I would have found these things out in enough time to plan a trip to another town that has, say, a Walmart. Or perhaps to order things online with enough time for them to arrive before the party.

I always mean to be uber-prepared. I started looking at things online at O riental T rading C ompany a month ago. But, then trying to be frugal, I decided to wait and see what I could find here first so I wouldn't have to pay for shipping unnecessarily. And, um, yeah, that was a month ago. Now here I sit with not enough party favors and a birthday party in 17.5 hours.

3.

Speaking of things that make birthday party planning difficult . . . why do people not RSVP? Is it really that difficult to do? Are people really so busy that they can't take 30 seconds to pick up a phone and say my kids is or is not coming to your kid's party? Are their lives so completely unpredictable that they just can't decide whether to commit two hours on a Saturday afternoon to a scheduled activity? What is wrong with people?!

4.

Okay, enough about the birthday party, already. The kids had a blast raking leaves into a giant pile last weekend and then hiding from me. The boys came in and said they had to change clothes; they were changing into things with orange on them so that they would better blend in with the leave they said.

5.

We've been flocked.

Apparently, that is what it's called when people put a bunch of signs in your yard supporting the local high school football team. There is a note on one of the signs that says, "You've been flocked," and it explains that members of the band or the football team or something will come by later today and, for a small fee of course, take up the signs and move them to the yard of my choosing.

Given her penchant for mispronouncing words, I think I'll just tell Lauren we've been signed instead of flocked. Less risky.

6.

I let the kids each paint a pumpkin yesterday afternoon. Joshua wanted to get on the internet and look for picture ideas and then, of course, picked the creepiest looking one I would let him get away with:



Ethan chose a happy looking pirate:



Lauren went for more of an abstract art nouveau look:

7.

Sadly, the pumpkins were not the only things to get painted. One of my children - who shall remain nameless but here's a hint: it's the one who spills a drink sixteen times a day and trips over his feet while walking on an hourly basis - knocked over the entire box of paints. The red paint flew out of the box and splattered all over the rug . . . and the walls . . . and the desk . . . and the window seat. I tried to clean it, but it wouldn't come out of the rug, and I keep finding more spots on the walls even as recently as this morning.

Let's hope there's a carpet cleaner in this town.

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