Blinded by Pride

This past Sunday I found myself sitting on a church pew, sandwiched between Mark and a friend-both of whom had their readers perched proudly-boldly-and OLD-ly upon their noses.  When it came time for hymn singing, these two nice gentleman graciously held the book open for me to share.  The only problem was, I'm still waging my "fight aging to the death" campaign, which means I still refuse to wear my new readers in public.  This posed an even bigger problem-- it meant that they could both see and therefore they held the book up WAY TOO CLOSE for me to read!

So to cover my wretched aged-ness, I simply lied and said I was so overcome by "the spirit" I just couldn't utter a single note.  When in fact, what I was REALLY overcome by, was my decrepit vision.  I couldn't see a damn word on the page. 

Soon,  I realized that I'd both LIED and SWORE under my breath
IN A CHURCH.  Now I'm old AND a sinner.  Two very bad things.  So now I've got some serious repenting to do.  Which is fine, I suppose, as long as I don't have to do any public reading.

Napkin Notes

I thought I'd try my hand at writing random love notes BACK to my kids.  So during the last few weeks of school, I wrote on napkins and put them in their lunch boxes. 

What I discovered was that writing these sort of odd love declarations--patterned after their  unpredictable and highly unusual professions--are not as easy as you'd think.  My brain was taxed and it took a lot for me to be random.  Thank goodness there were only a few days left of school so that I didn't have to come up with that many!

I thought about writing one to Connor telling him that I loved him more than his dad does, but I knew that could very well get me shot by a high powered modified Nerf gun when Mark found out.

The Sheralyn Experiment

I was doing some reading the other day and happened to have my [ahem] reading glasses on.  And because I am still young enough to feel the shame that comes from finding myself amidst this messy business of needing spectacles to read, I absolutely refuse to wear them in any fashion that would lead people to conclude that they are what they really are.  Which is basically grandma glasses minus the dreaded neck chain.

Happy was the day when I bought some readers that could easily pass for regular glasses.  But, as I have posted previously, for one to complete the facade, a little "smoke and mirrors" must be involved, which is to say,  they cannot be worn on the tip of the nose nor can the wearer tilt their chin so as to gaze over the rims.  These are both dead giveaways that you are wearing readers.

So on Sunday I was sitting at home cozy-ed up with a book.  The fire was roaring and I was blissfully content in a swirl of a thick soft quilt.  With glasses on, I turned from my book to stare across the room and read the clock.  It was all a blur.  My dilemma at this point was this: do I lift the glasses to rest on the top of my head or do I quickly lower my chin and peer over the rims, since, after all, no one was in the room with me?  The former seemed like a lot of work.  The latter seemed like a slippery slope to a bad habit that might habitually make its way into public life and I just couldn't chance it.  In my extreme refusal to peer over the rims, I have had, of late, many a conversation in public with blurry people.

Suddenly I had the realization that my niece Sheralyn is no stranger to the world of blur.  She sees this way every single day.  She wears glasses and without them the poor girl is practically blind.  Every single morning she wakes to a hazy world completely out of focus and has to get her glasses on before she does anything else.  Just recently, she forgot to bring her glasses with her to swim practice.  She's on the high school's varsity swim team and when she lost the contacts in the pool she had NO backup plan.  She literally had to crouch down towards the floor and follow the lines beside the pool, like she was reading braille, in order to find her way back to the locker room! 

So with that in mind I decided to spend the rest of my Sunday in what I call, "The Sheralyn Experiment".  A day in the life.  This should keep me from my aging pity parties and make me appreciate that fact that I can at least see everything far away.  Just not up close!  So, I kept my reading glasses on for the rest of the day and navigated life precariously impaired.  In order to read the clock I had to walk to it, past the blur of furniture and get within a foot of it so I could read it.  By the time the day was over I had a new appreciation for my niece and the remaining eyesight I do have left.  But I also had sore and stubbed toes, and a giant whopping headache!

With a new outlook on the challenges of aging eyesight,  I am now worried about some serious things that were called to my attention during my "Sheralyn Experiment".  If, in my decrepit future, my vision gets really really bad, how in the heck will I...

• See to put on my make-up?
• Stay "in the lines" if I have ever reach the age when I have to trace on my eyebrows?
• Continue to have conversations with blurry people who I identify only by the sound of their voice if suddenly my hearing starts getting bad too?

And now I'm starting to wonder if...

• I will have to get one of those phones with giant buttons?
• If I can't see to even find my readers, will I end up caving in and buying a chain to hang them about my neck like an albatross drowning me into the sea of wretched decrepitude?
• And if so,  is it possible that eye wear chains will ever be considered "Bling"? 

Oh, yes, the "Sheralyn Experiment" did me a lot of good.  But it also raised a lot of questions and an ill-drawn eyebrow or two.

When Boys Get Crafty

Have you ever seen Perler Beads?

They're these little plastic meltable beads that kids create different shapes and designs with using sturdy little peg boards.  When your creation is finished, you can iron it together permanently, thus insuring that once it's been melted,  your child's masterpiece can last as long as Michelangelo's ceiling and be admired for generations to come.

These are a few of Chloe's latest creations:

It's just the kind of thing girls love and just the kind of thing I disdain.  Any toy/craft with tiny pieces tend to make me crazy-though lucky for me these sorts of things somehow have a way of mysteriously disappearing from the house when the kids go off to school.

However,  I've recently decided that Perlers are not so bad for TWO reasons:

1. Unlike Legos, one pass with a vacuum and the headache's gone.
2. It can occupy a bored girl for hours and hours.

What I did not realize was that Perlers can actually entertain bored TEENAGED BOYS equally as well.  Who knew, right?  But it's true.
  
During spring break, Chloe and her cousins Madi and Janelle spent many long days making creations of every color, size, and shape.  Initially the boys around the house largely ignored the craft fest going on at the kitchen bar.  But around day three a strange thing happened.

It happened when the girls decided to take a little "craft break" and went to spend a day or two at Madi and Janelle's house.  This left us with a house full of testosterone.  To my surprise, I came into the kitchen and found that the boys had commandeered the Perlers and began a massive crafting frenzy of their own.

What did these boys make, you ask?  Of course they did not make cute little girl shapes, or silly monkeys, or pink lizards and geometric flowers.  Nor did they even try to make sports shapes-which would have been my guess.

What they were making was WAR.

Spread across the bar were dozens of tiny little army people.  Blue army guys and green army guys all placed in strategic formations.

...and of course they made little army tanks to go with them:

After CRAFTing and ironing legions of warriors together they raided the house in search of some sort of advanced weaponry to wage a little warfare.  Their weapon of choice?  Rubber bands.

The onslaught lasted for hours.  And for several weeks after,  I found the carnage in obscure corners of the house.  Poor little green and blue decapitated soldiers who'd gone MIA were later vacuumed up from under couches, rugs, and unlodged from obscure corners about the kitchen.

A day or two later, when the girls came back to resume "Project Perlers", they began to complain that there were no green or blue Perlers to craft with.

"Where'd all the blue and green ones go?  They're all gone!" The girls grumbled.

"The boys used them all up." I answered.

"The boys?" they said with scrunched up faces.  "The boys don't craft!" they insisted.

Unfortunately for me I don't think I convinced the girls that the boys really did use the Perlers...or an IRON for that matter either.  They still think I sat around for two days secretly crafting up green and blue creations.  Thanks to the boys, my good craft-free name has been called under question.  Lets hope the photos will once again restore my good name.

Nerf Gone Wrong

Most of our family squabbles are worked out in one of two ways.  By a decisive game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, or we shoot it out with our arsenal of Nerf guns.  These methods usually solve everything, including marital spats.

The boys around the house apparently do not understand the simple reasoning behind "foam-based weaponry" which is--to AVOID human harm.  They've been complaining for years that the firepower just isn't enough so satisfy their hunter/gatherer, testosterone amp-ed need for violence.

I arrived home one afternoon and found this scene:

Apparently my guys were not the first to suffer from the pains of inadequate "fire power" offered by Nerf.  When the boys Googled their awful plight and actually found a website...

They spent the entire afternoon "modifying" every Nerf gun in the house.

Thank goodness for Google.  It's so good, it hurts.