Do You Freecycle?

I'm usually the last to clue in to new things, so you all may already know about "freecycling." Freecycling is an excellent way to pick up items you need/want for free, or to give items that you no longer need/want to someone who actually wants them!


Most of us probably engage in "small-f" freecycling in an ad hoc manner: passing on things our kids have outgrown to friends and relatives; sharing perennials with neighbours; participating in community swap events...


But there's also "big-F" freecycling. There are groups of people around the world who are members of local Freecycle networks. You find your local group, become a member (joining is free) and receive notifications via email of offers (you can choose how often you get notifications). Check out freecycle.org to find a group in your area.


Freecycling is different from donating items to a charity or for-profit outfits like Value Village. It directly unites useable things with individuals who appreciate them, and keeps stuff out of the landfill.


Even weird items, like old doors, antique computers and well-loved dog beds can find new homes with Freecycle. (All things I have really Freecycled.) It's also nice for items that are too fragile for those big donation bins, or that have lots of little, but essential, pieces that may get lost.


Donating to charities and Freecycling each have their place. But Freecycling has the added bonus of giving you the opportunity to score some great stuff... for free! (Like art history books, storage cabinets and the coolest bouncing ride-on frog toy --all stuff I have really received from Freecycle.)


Happy freecycling (or Freecycling)!

And the Award for "Worst Mother of the Week" Goes To...

Me. The "Worst Mother of the Week" Award goes to me. It all started out like a regular kind of week. Little did I know that my view of myself as a "decent mother" would take such a beating in the span of less than seven days.

The backdrop was of four little boys making constant high-pitched noises and whirling in perpetual motion. Add to that the fact that we'd been running on a sleep-reduced diet for a week or so. I think it all just started to wear on me. Whatever it was, I was noticeably edgier.  


In an attempt to preserve some of my remaining sanity, I turned to the old-standby: videos. Nothing helps this mummy feel calmer than having her kids entranced by flashing images on the TV screen. (That alone earns me a half-point towards the Worst Mother award.)


But this time, I had put on a new video, an animated re-telling of a Tom Kitten story by Beatrix Potter. Safe, right? Wrong. 

Looks innocent, doesn't it?

In the video, Tom Kitten is captured by a pair of rats, who wrap him in dough and prepare to eat him. Their gnashing of teeth and Tom's panicked struggling seemed to account for most of the running time. My almost-five-year-old kept screaming, "Mummy, turn it off!" and I kept yelling, "It's fine! He's going to be fine!" At the very last second, Tom is rescued by his mother, who dramatically saws through the floorboards to reach him.


After I put the kids to bed, my almost-fiver came padding down the hall to find me almost half a dozen times in the span of a few hours. Finally, when I admonished him to stay in bed, he tearfully replied, "Mummy, we shouldn't have watched that video. I can't stop thinking about it, and it's giving me bad dreams." Ohhh, did I feel like the Worst Mother!

Another evening that same week, I used up all my patience getting dinner on the table. So when I ended up negotiating with my crew about whether and how much of the meal they should eat, things got a little heated. In fact, my partner gave me a time out. (That makes it sound bad, but what he did was to suggest that maybe I needed a break and why don't I take some time for myself?) But not to be defeated by an argumentative almost-fiver and two toddlers (and one hollering infant) I continued to oratorize from the next room. Eventually, I could hear our oldest comment quietly to dad, "I wish I had a mummy who didn't yell." Sigh. Another check for the Worst Mother.
  

A few days later, I came down sick and called in the reinforcements --aka the grandparents-- and asked them to take our oldest for the day. Wonderful. Except that our boy, in true almost-five fashion, flat out refused to go with them. Yes, even hid under the dining room table. In the end, I had to literally drag him out, kicking and screaming, and haul him into his coat and boots and shove him out the door. Now, I'm not a child psychologist, but I'm pretty sure that having your mother forcibly evict you from your home is damaging in some way. And it earned me another point towards the title.

And... last, but certainly not least, I think my kids ate pizza three times that week... And one of those times was following a meal of grilled cheese sandwiches. No veggies. Nary a one. Yes, clinched it! The winner! (Thank you, thank you...)


Yep, not my most stellar performance. The good news is that I get a second chance to be the Good Mother that I want to be (and third, and fourth, and...). And I console myself somewhat by saying that my kids will know that mummies --and daddies-- are human, just like kids are.

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Craft: Old Calendar Sticker Collage

I know calendars seem like a good corporate gift. But then everybody jumps on the bandwagon and the result is madness! Every year, we get a least half a dozen calendars from various businesses (our pharmacy, a few realtors, not-for-profits), as well as friends and family (who are trying to off-load some of their own bounty). And, ironically, I have become that mother that intentionally purchases(!) an additional calendar --the kind that's so big it consumes the entire upper section of your fridge door and that comes with the little stickers for every conceivable event (change furnace filters? really?).


I can't bring myself to coldly toss the excess into the recycling. Such nice pictures! And any that feature animals will only be rescued from the bin by my fauna-loving boys anyways, so I don't bother.

But what to do with all these calendars? It only took me a couple of years of pondering to reach a moment of enlightenment. Involved crafts simply do not happen in our house ... or at least they don't happen well. (In fact, our son's JK report card suggested that we "encourage him to use scissors and glue." Just four-and-a-half and already behind in Glue and Scissor Skills 101!)


But, my three older boys love to make pictures with stickers. So we created story collages using stickers and calendar pages.


Yes, it's as straightforward as it sounds: we stuck stickers on the calendar pictures. And then we made up stories to go with the pictures.

The finished products were added to our "gallery wall" in the dining room.


This one (at left) involved dogs searching for bones hidden in the trees. I don't remember how the cats came into it...


The story for the picture below was that a mummy dog swam to the island while carrying her (many) puppies, one-by-one, in her mouth. Then they all searched for food and played.










Successful crafting session: one point!

Oil of Oregano: Not Just for Salads

This weekend it was finally my turn to succumb to whatever illness my four boys have been circulating since November. Thankfully the grandparents came to the rescue, looking after all or some of the kids for a couple of days. 


Immediately when she saw me, my mother-in-law asked, "Have you taken your oil of oregano?" I love how, even though she's a retired nurse, she's always on the lookout for natural remedies. This tendency has been especially helpful because for the past number of years I've been either pregnant or breastfeeding, and a lot of pharmaceutical cold meds have been off-limits. Oil of oregano is her newest find.


My father-in-law is not as impressed with the oil of oregano. He gags on it. I sort of like the taste. It's like a super-concentrated Greek salad, all in two little drops. I put the oil in a little whisper of water and throw it back like a shot. 


And I must say that, though it may be psychosomatic, this uber-salad dressing does seem to help. (This is the first time I've been laid low so far this winter.)


Anybody have any other tried-and-true remedies they swear by?

Crafting a Valentine's Wreath

I know it may seem crazy to add non-essential jobs to my to-do list, especially when family life is exploding in many ways (illnesses, work, appliances giving up, cars breaking down). But my eldest will be celebrating his birthday with his kindergarten class, along with all the other winter birthdays, on Valentine's Day. And so I wanted to mark it in a little special way.


Inspired by my friend KJ's felt rose wreath, I wanted to decorate a heart shape to hang on our door. (Okay, in all honesty I first checked out IKEA's website to see if the heart-shaped straw wreaths from Christmas were still available. They weren't.) But while KJ's wreath is lovely, I didn't want to make all those felt roses! I lucked out at the local thrift shop, where I found several bags of new, "silk" flower petals.

 


I've shared previously what tends to happen when we do crafts as a family, and as this craft was to involve a hot glue gun, I decided to go solo. Using heart-shaped styrofoam wreaths from the dollar store as the base, I glued the artificial petals on in a random pattern. The hearts came covered in red glitter, which shows through a little at the point of contact with the petals. I actually like the effect; almost like added coloration or shading on the petals.

I had originally planned to make three hearts, but completing one was sufficiently labour-intensive --it took me a couple of hours over several days-- that I'm stopping at one for now. Next year I'll do another one, and the year after that...

Making a Mudroom

A couple of years ago now, we had stairs and an entrance made from our yard into the basement. Like many of you who live in urban centres, we have little front hall to speak of (i.e. if there are more than three coats on the coat hooks, you can't open the door) and our back door opens directly into the kitchen. And although we only had three children at the time, we could see that a plethora of outerwear would soon swamp either area.


I had always envisioned the wall just inside our new basement entrance as a "mudroom" --a place for all the coats and jackets, boots and shoes, hats, scarves and mitts to come to rest. Organized. Out of sight. And not spilling out into the middle of the kitchen floor!


Between conception to execution there was a lot of long-suffering on the part of my in-laws and partner (as is often the case with my "visions"). I'm a scavenger. If something out at the curb catches my eye, I grab it and figure out later if I can use it. And later can be years down the road, during which time the scavenged item is stored at my in-laws. And when I say that "I grab it," what I mean is that I call my partner, give him the location and have him pick it up. Yes, long-suffering indeed.

The bench, painted and ready for action.

Regarding the "mudroom," my scavenging resulted in... well, something that looks like a bench. Hey, it was solid wood (heavy as sin) and just needed a little work. No problem. 


Two years later, a thorough sanding and a couple of coats of Benjamin Moore's Aura paint have given somebody's trash a glorious new life as our bench. (Sorry there are no "before" photos; I wasn't that organized. And I know it looks like I'm plugging a product, but I'll explain my reasons for choosing such a paint in another post...)

They hold everything!

But my new "favourite item" in our house are the hooks. As soon as I laid eyes on them in the Lee Valley hardware catalogue, I knew they were the ones. And they are super. Super-super-duper. Three prongs (for all that stuff) and strong enough to eventually hold backpacks full of books and whatnot. Best yet, they look cool. Love 'em.


I got six of them, one for each member of the family. Now everyone has his own spot to hang his stuff (notice the masculine pronouns there --my things seem to have no trouble staying organized). Even the dog will have her own hook (as soon as I get around to that). 

Ta-da!

A future project (hopefully not two years in the making) is to build some boxes and mount them above the hooks for storage... I'll keep you posted.