Facebook Withdrawal *twitch twitch*

I noticed that I was starting to exhibit some addictive behaviors regarding Facebook, so I decided to quit. Again. Only this time I didn't delete everything because I really regret that I did that last time. So I just put my goodbye note up, asked my dear husband to change my password and under no circumstances to tell me what he changed it to, and directed all my beloved Facebook friends and followers to my poor old neglected blog.

Which is probably just going to replace Facebook as my addiction. It's slightly healthier though because it doesn't have a Newsfeed. Or notifications. Or a million snarky political memes. (Seriously, that Donald Trump "We Shall Overcomb" one? Presidential race comedic gold, I'm telling you.)

So, to make a long story short, I'm quitting Facebook cold turkey and I am already starting to suffer. You might be able to tell by the fact that I'm rambling on with a blog post at 10:45 pm instead of going to bed ... because I'm used to being on Facebook and gosh darn it I can't handle it. I need my spoon-fed media like a junkie needs ... uh, their drug of choice. 

So I've admitted I have a problem and I've jumped straight to replacing that problem with another one which will hopefully have less positive reinforcement and far fewer addiction-fueling stimuli. Of course, the real purpose of quitting Facebook is so that I can focus on writing for my job, because every time I'm not typey-handsing in a Microsoft Word document I feel guilty:

But at least writing a blog post is more productive than scrolling through one's Newsfeed for hours, right? That's what I'm telling myself at least. Now please comment, because I'm about to get really lonely over here without my crack Facebook.

Bedtime

Nothing sweeter than going to sleep on clean sheets, with crickets singing outside the open window and a little boy hiccuping in his sleep next to you. 

Magical Orange Vinegar Cleaner

I am always and forever chasing my kids away from the cleaning chemicals. I am also always and forever scrubbing up the messes my kids make, because sticky.

We've also been buying a lot of oranges recently.

So I've been soaking the orange peels in vinegar, which makes a practically free, concentrated, nontoxic cleaner that smells fabulous.

And this morning when Heidi and Ion were squabbling and Rori was trying to get into the (sealed) container of OxyClean, I had a brainwave. Fill up 3 bottles with orange cleaner, give each kid a bottle and a rag, and let 'em go.

The coffee table is now soaking wet, the entire kitchen is swimming in orange vinegar, and they're going after their toy shelf with a vengeance. Ninja mom level: master.

Grateful for chaos

Today I am grateful for the chaos that my life sometimes is. It means that I have four beautiful, creative, energetic children who aren't afraid to ask for (and sometimes insist) on what they want and need in life. It means that I have food to feed them, even when that food is scattered all over the table. It means that we are blessed enough to have a choice in food, so they have the luxury of being picky eaters (and therefore scattering their food). It means they love each other and want to play with each other, even when that means someone steps on someone else, or when it means that Ion insists on being Ana instead of Kristoff and Heidi (who also wanted to be Ana) is stuck without a love interest. It means that they have beds and blankets to make a mess of, and they have clothes to wear or pull out of their drawers and leave in piles all over their room.

Chaos means a lot of things that many people in the world don't have. So since my choices are to be grateful for it or to cry about it, I'm going to be grateful for it. And then I'm going to drink a tall glass of blackberry wine (something else to be grateful for) and start to work on cleaning it all up.

#thegratitudeproject

The Castle of Muskogee

Check out my guest post on Ryan's blog! We went to the Renaissance Festival at the Muskogee Castle, and I wrote about it!

Rainbow Cake

The day before Easter seems like the perfect time to make a rainbow cake! (actually, Heidi had just been asking to make one forever and we finally capitulated.)

You could do this with regular white cake mix but we got Duff Goldman's tie-dye cake mix because that way we knew the food coloring colors would mix and be pretty, instead of turning muddy. 

Heidi helped. 

A lot. 

So did Ion. Super helpful. Those beaters weren't going to lick themselves. 

(please ignore the just-played-outside shirt. His only involvement in food prep was licking the beaters. No sweat or mud got in the cake.)

Separate the batter into 6 bowls and let a child help you mix your colors. If said child sneaks bites, you will be able to tell by the blue stains on her lips. 

Separating out the batter and mixing the colors was kind of more time consuming than I like food prep to be, like, ever. But the kids thought it was AWESOME and I got to sneak in a lesson about the color wheel. A delicious color wheel. 

Some lessons die hard when you're the child of an art teacher. 

By the way, using the food coloring that came in the box was the right choice. Look at how not-muddy those colors are!

Then you pour the batter into the pan in order (red first, then orange on top, then yellow on top of that, etc.).

No after-baking photos - they stuck to the pan a bit (user error - we were out of Pam and I used butter) so we ate 'em. 

DELICIOUS. This cake mix is totally worth the price. 

We'll try again in the morning and see if we can't get them to come out of the oven pretty enough to decorate.

 

Plantable Easter baskets!

You wish your husband were as creative as mine. Admit it.

Ryan came home from the store today with brightly colored flower pots and a bunch of perennials. Tomorrow we'll decorate them with pretty stickers and let the kids use them to gather eggs. Then we'll plant flowers in them. 

A much better way to honor the return of life to the earth than throwing plastic baskets into a landfill, don't you think?