Violent Outbursts of ...

A violent outburst, as of emotion or activity.

The dictionary lists it under tornado, but what it really means to reference are those two week or greater tapes of manic wonder called school breaks. You may mark the seasons by turn of leaves, fall of snow, springs of love, days of dog...I classify them by length of break. Round these here parts, breaks are a violent outburst, as of emotion or activity.

For a solid introvert, the flurry of sudden, well, presence in the house is overwhelming enough. Add to it the near-cataclysmic proportions of bickering, screeching, whining, and all-together nerve-breaking bouts of "I'm boooooored!", and you've got me on the verge of forced escape to a happy any other place.

Then again, sometimes the rays of pre-parenting world break on through. Back then, I thought every moment with the kiddos would be one of eye-opening candor. Of wondrous appreciation. Of almost obsessive observation.And what do you know?

When we're in the eye of the tornado (say, Day 7), we get away. On a getaway. (Get it?) They've become (to invoke a criminally overused adjective) epic in our family's fun album. Yeah, yeah, we grin and giggle. Is it so surprising to admit those are the moments labeled "best 'uns" in the album? But better than best are the ones where we learn a thing or two - or 20 - about each one of the wee ones to whom we gave life, love, and even last name.

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.  ~Stacia Tauscher

Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.  ~Fran Lebowitz

 

Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child.  ~Joan Almon

 

 A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.  ~Bill Vaughan

 He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That's his.  ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.  ~Marc Brown

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.  ~Author Unknown
 

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.  ~Franklin P. Adams

What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow in his footsteps?  ~Author Unknown

 To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.  ~Barbara Bush

 

Redone

My spunky friend, Jessica B, yields a superpower particularly useful in our world gone clutter: she's a professional organizer. Her recent FB post proclaimed, "I love me a good, hot mess!" And God bless her for it! But I got to thinking: if I finished that sentence, how would it read?

I love a good, hot __________. (Wait, wasn't I in this fix last post, too?)

Project. My answer is project.

When Craig or one of the kids starts a sentence with, "You know, we should..." and end it with, "...you could totally do that", my inner project designer sits up and barks. In honor of the double sticks birthday, Grace decided she wanted most a bedroom makeover that was, as she put it, "bigger girl. But not too big."
     She wanted a room.
          Redone.

Now, any shopping fiend carrying a 54-by-86 mm IOU can redesign a room in an afternoon. But can you do it for less than $50? How creative can you be and still proudly wave your frugal flag? Now that's the real project.

Her color picks and patterns + a quest for the perfect fabric = Girl Date. Here's what she settled on.

Polka dots. In orange, pink, and brown. Best part of redoing a tween's room? No rules!

Which is good because we crafted these felt pillows to accent.

They're so easy to make, and each one cost mere cents. Buy the felt by the yard from a fabric store at about $1.50/yard. Use a coupon! We varied the sizes based on Grace's whim and cut the pillow forms from orange and brown. We also scooped up a couple of the 10 cent felt squares in neon green and fuschia for accent. You can hem inside around the perimeter or use an accent thread in a zig-zag on the outside for extra pop. Leave a few inches at a base side to stuff with Poly-Fil, and then stitch it up when the pillow's full. Grace decorated the outside using beads, circles, and flat glass marbles. Voila!

Strangely, our biggest brain teaser was this:

No, it's not a dead orange ostrich? Or, not quite. The shade used to be purple-trimmed, and how hard (dreamed I) could it be to find an orange shade? Well, if I was looking now, none at all - for they adorn the endcap of every blasted aisle in Target. But when I needed one? Nope. It was like water in the Sahara: a mirage of possibility, at best. Lest we be beat, the girl and I snagged a bag of orange feathers at Hobby Lobby which I used promptly to re-frock the lamp.

Remember: no rules.

A quick repaint of her name...

and a re-striping and decal-ing of her dresser ...

(We pulled out the drawers and painted her new colors just at the white areas between the drawer tops and bottoms. Then I free-handed some detail at the top and sides.)

along with a "craft-line" (aka hemp rope with painted clothespins in her new colors) to showcase her current treasures, and she was set! This way, she can change out her pieces without hanging them all over her room.

To further that idea, we used the narrow and wretched-to-paint wall area between her closet and bedroom doors to mount a corkboard wall. You can grab a package at a craft supply store for about $12 for 6 of the 8x8 size. Then hang 'em up in any configuration you want and let your kiddo go mad showcasing ribbons, notes, medals, drawings, snapshots...whatever. And NO HOLES in the wall!

I like!

 

Yes, I love me a good, hot project.

On a budget (yep, less than $50).

But I learned a little some'in, some'in along the way this time.

Our girl is growing up.

Today's "bigger girl but not too big" will fast become "bigger yet" and "bigger still" until she's decorating a house of her own.

If time is going to fly the way it insists on doing, these are the collaborations I'll love best.

Sure, there will be lots of hot projects. 

But the ones happening in a 10x12 cube with a Daddy, a Mommy, and a leggy Tween brainstorming on a budget....well, I suspect those are the ones that'll be remembered for quite some time. 

By every heart involved.

So, I s'pose I don't love me a good, hot project so much as I love me a good, hot family remodel, fixed and fiddled and flagged for display.

Us and her.

 

Redone.

Overhaul Your Soul

February has arrived, and you know what that means.

Yeah, you have no idea, do ya.

Well, for Cadbury, it's time to crack some eggs. For Whitman's, it's time to blend the chocolate. And for Swiss Miss, it's time to stir the cocoa - extra marshmallows, please.

For the Covak's, it's time to mark Month of Love. You can hit the link to get an overview and history, but the box of chocolates synopsis?

If you get crazy about it, it'll become a habit. And habits will become ways of life. Ways of life change the soul. And souls change the world.

Every day in February is a cleaned-and-cleared slate to commit acts of love. Put love thoughts in the atmosphere. Get a bit more crazy and a skosh less restrained...all in the name of love. Love done His way. Carried my way. Their way. Heck, why not your way, too?

The month of January is about the planning. Yes, it takes a month. But that's just because I'm me and, well, my "me" is anal-retentively intentional, irrationally organized and, as a result, restricted to a month's worth of plotting and pinning. (I mean pinning, literally...I actuallly created a Month of Love board on Pinterest to gather all the state-of-the-heart brainstorms out there.) This year, the parts and parcels of the particulars, though, I've bound with a different string for, if I've learned but one thing from this family experiment, it is this:

Give God an inch on the subject of love, He'll re-plot your course a mile.

Months of Love have taught my soul a lesson or two on rejoicing over it, laboring in it, relishing within it, pausing for it, basking after it, catching it, releasing it, and creating it...in the fashion of the ultra-cool. But, in all these, my hand did not steer the wheel. You just gotta' go with the flow - another little dittie learned in the month slotted 2.

It is in this way, we get crazy.
Build habits.
Make new lives.
Overhaul our souls.
Change the world.

This year, I made us a reminder to press beneath a glass and checkmark as we go. (I printed it, framed it 8x10 style, and centered it on our kitchen table. We'll let the kiddos use a Dry-Erase marker to fill in the bullets.)

 It's our manifesto and edict...to get the little's done and, so, see the big.
The best.
Which is love.
Which is Him.

Overhaul your soul.
Month of Love.

Not Uncommonly So

Superpowers astound me. Leave me wishing I had one. Which is to say, I dig them. They're like silent background music that rushes suddenly to the fore when the overriding dialogue hushes. Which is to say, you don't notice them until you're lookin' for 'em. I don't know why, or when, or even quite how...but, at some point, I started seeing superpowers.

Not the bit-by-a-lab-spider-and-now-have-suction-cups-for-fingers type, but the other kind. You know the ones. Like that peculiar mojo that some folk have to do what otherwise shouldn't make sense: those voices that sooth to the point of tingles or humors that tickle to the height of mania or insights that reveal to the just-right edge of light. They're the markers of the "he can fix anything" or the "she'll know just what to do". They're the ups of dark days and the downs of free falling, and they are uncommonly rare.

Or are they?

Because, if they are, they sure do turn up the strangest places.
   Why, on Christmas night, one reared up at my kitchen table!

It came in the form of my mother-in-law who is, arguably, a super-somethin' all in herself. Indeed, she boasts a few "supers" - one of which is the uncanny ability to go into a hobby shop and come out with the best game you've never heard of. Examples, you say? Well, there was this one.

 Not to be bested by the kids' favorite, of course.

Or her current find sittin' pretty in 1st place atop the pecking order.

Playing it produced these candids.

      

 

 (Yeah, that says what you think it says.)

Yes, Mom's superpower brought the game. But the evening had its own brand of peculiar mojo: one night, impossible to repeat ergo uncommon and (aha!) rare.

Except it wasn't.

Sure, the memories are one-in-a-brain's-billion, but the emotion wasn't. The sentiments weren't. The safety that fostered both certainly isn't.

Maybe family is its own kind of superpower; the "up" that coaxes the silly (crossed and boogers come to mind) from even the most serious. Or the "down" that cushions the ridiculous (um, there was that episode of required foot smelling) from ever feeling...well, ridiculous.

And, if that's truly the case, then we have all at least one power hailing from the super column - if not by kin then by kind. If not in family, then through friend.

Rare?
Maybe.
But I think perhaps not uncommonly so.

All Year Through

Charles Dickens is one of my favorite writers. Hold back your hollas of agreement groans of disgust to hear me out. Yeah, he was a wee bit droll and - here, here - some of his longest paragraphs are about as desirous as a crocodile in your swimming hole. Nevertheless, the man knew how to tell a person's story. And stories - yours, mine, and ours - are just about my favorite beguilements on this planet o'mine.

Which is what most readers of the classics know. The rest of you just don't care. Which is just dandy because that's not my only point. (You wish). Nah, here's the kicker: Dickens had a thing for Christmas. If you've seen A Christmas Carol, then you already know he wrote about it. He also tidbitted the occassional interview with it, too. And, thanks to the handy internet, I didn't have to pull out my grad school books to find some of those very literary vittles. Thank you, Quote Garden (fave, fave, fave).

 I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

 Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! ~ The Pickwick Papers

By far, though, this is the one that plays the sentimental chord on my heartstings:

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Emphasis added. Because I love that last part. A writer with a skilled pen captured the nugget that slips easiest through my searching fingers...and comes up with the truth that unites in lieu of divides on Christmas Eve and Morn.

It yums the festive up in families - mine included, for sure - so we can celebrate the traditions of the season. Like attending service on the Eve with my mother-in-law, Sandy, and standing for flash after flash (thanks, Kim!), until you get the one.

Or eating our annual family dinner out, opening all our presents, and then picking up Mom again for "midnight" mass...a relic from my own childhood alive in present day.

It's in the belly-laughs of the boys' "gut bumps" in their Eve jammies

and relishing the smells (new leather!), sights (an "It's Gross!" section), and subjects (Habba-who?) of Elijah's new Bible.

Along the way, we can't forget the rock stars in our lives - like Uncle Tim. They all wanted pictures with his gifts to them...rather like getting a backstage pass or autograph at the concert, I s'pose.

When we intersect on this journey, I find that Dickens is right. Again. Our hearts really do open: whether closed by the scars of pains long-carried or wounds and hurts only just buried, we catch a draft of hope here and there. We pause and breathe and remember the best of what we have rather than the worst of what we've lost.

For me, I see them

 and how only they can make this "us".

Seems to me, we could all remember a bit more intentionally that the folks to your left and right, before and behind, aren't just the schlubs rubbing you the wrong way or - flip the coin - the bests of the bestests, arms entwined with yours. We're all fellow passengers on a journey to the grave, and life is short -
    if I can get that into my heart, maybe I'll find it even easier to carry the Christmas spirit...
           all year through.

33% Bliss

The months between October and January are a marathon, not a sprint. 

For lots of us. Let's get real: for MOST of us.
In a world where "different" is the new "same", the quest of getting-through-holidays-with-festive-zing-intact is the uniting thread that might - gasp! - actually get us through the holidays with festive zing intact. Radical, I know.

In our house, the race gun fires come October 31st - for you, this may be because, Hark!, it's Halloween. For us, too. But it's also our anniversary: add an Elijah's birthday chaser mixed with a shake of Thanksgiving, a stir of Gracie's birthday, a splash of Christmas, and top with a two-olived pick of New Year's and Craig's birthday, and you've got one heck of a marathon martini.

Wait. Was that entire analogy centered on liquor?
Well, that was entirely on purpose.
        I mean, subconscious.
                I mean, accidental.

Like you, we're also paying the bills, cleaning the house, hitting the gym, cheering the kids, scheduling the meetings, gassing the car, shopping the stores, and...well...living the glamorous life.

So who has time for blogging? Well, sadly, I haven't prioritized it...though other rock-stars have maintained the pace (props, people. Props). And who pays the price?
We-ellllllllll....me.
       I mean, us.
           All right, I mean you.

Because you've got the sandwich post that throws the first third of the leg at you all at once...I like to think of it as 33% Bliss.

Apologies in advance.

Grace and her friend, Ally, had a piano recital just before Halloween. It was themed. How can you tell?

 This year, the Covak's became the Scooby Gang...complete with Scooby, Velma (seriously, Grace hardly looks like Grace, right?) and Shaggy.

LOVE! Thanks, Zitzmann's for taking it in our absence!

 

 

 

  Not afraid to be eclectic: our traditional Halloween with the Z's found us lost in the land of Mystery Gang/Zombie Sweet Witch/Ahoy, Matey!/American Werewolf in Colorado...makes a  heart happy, this shot.

 

Look at his little body! Cute.

And, as always, we marked the Pumpkin-palooza with painting (yeah, we don't carve...WAY too much work for Momma and Daddy). Each kiddo gets his own and her own wee gourd, and then we all paint a panel on the family pumpkin.

Here are the "fruits" of their labor.

2 more 33% Bliss's to go!