Colored wax madness.

I had a huge tub full of old rotten crayons.  Old.  Rotten.  Broken.  All kinds of messed up, and wasting space.  But I didn't just want to throw them away, and I remembered someone, somewhere, who melted them down and made new ones.  Or something.

SO.

I thought, "What would be more fun than sorting through crayons, and peeling off those miniscule labels, and cutting them into pieces and melting them down in the oven?  That sounds AWESOME."

With Bryan's help, that's what I did.  We sorted through them, peeled off the labels, and used a box cutter to chop them up into smaller pieces.  I used a non-stick mini muffin tray, and set the oven to 200^o, and just left them in there long enough for them to become all liquidy (maybe 15 minutes, or thereabouts).

 It did not ruin the muffin tin, but I had to wait until the crayons were totally and fully hardened before taking them out of the tray.  The only thing is, there were little drips and spills, so cleanup is going to be a bitch.  If anyone's interested in doing this, I really recommend getting a muffin tray dedicated for this sort of thing.  Then you don't have to worry about getting orange crayon in your mini cupcakes, yes?

*Click on the photo to see the full set* 

This was a kick-ass project, and I really love how they turned out.  I'm planning on getting some little tins, and giving sets of these out as gifts, and maybe putting a few sets in the store.  Fun! 

Ugh.

Today was just not the greatest of days.

 I'm going to go make something to eat, and put on my pjs, and wallow.

 That is all.

A few craft things, and some other bits of nonsense.

I've forced myself, over the past few days, to sit down and actually do some things that I've been meaning to do for awhile.  I didn't get all of them done, but some.

I had a package (well, stack, really) of books to send to Marissa's godmother, and I thought that I'd throw a few things in there for good measure.  She gave me a really cool beading book for Christmas (to see it, click the "nightstand" link in my sidebar.  Yes, I could link it here.  Yes, I'm too lazy to do it.)  Anyway, seeing the pictures inspired me to get out my bead box.

As a funny little aside (hee, hee, ho, ho) when I say "bead box," I don't mean a cute, fancy little crafting box.  I don't even mean a tacklebox with compartments.  I mean an actual box.  Like, from U-Haul.  And now that I've admitted that, feel free to hush about it.

Anywho, I inherited some junk jewelry from my Grandpa Joe's house (thanks for all the crap, dad!) and most of it was pretty, um, hideous.  I did keep it though because a) that's what we do in my family, and b) I had the brilliant idea of taking it apart and salvaging the beads.  Well, so, that's what I did.  I made her a bracelet, 90% of which is from salvaged beads from the costume jewelry, and 10% stuff I already had.  In my big ass box. 

Then I dyed a tank top, and let Marissa decorate it up.  I think she did a pretty fly job, no?  As you can tell, by looking at the pictures with your eyeballs, the godmother has a love of the color purple.  I took full advantage of this knowledge.  Exploited it, if you will.  I know.  High-five to me.

 Charlotte has tons of clothes lately (Phoebe's leftovers), but, due to the girth of her booty, was in need of some pants.  Hence, the pants.  Miss T's shirt was the inspiration for the matching flower applique.

Phoebe needs more long-sleeved shirts, and my serger is on the fritz, and I don't want to sew knits on my machine.  So, I used the Kimono-style wrap shirt pattern, and some delicious Alexander Henry material, and omitted the ties and used snaps instead.  I love it.  She hates it.  Yes, she's smiling in the picture.  She likes to be happy for the internet.  It's not for the shirt, it's for the camera.

And now for the other bits.   I woke up this morning, and was hit with a longing for Southern California.  I have no idea why, but it was so strong, and it made me want to curl up in a ball and cry.  I don't want to go back -- that's not it.  I just miss it.  I miss the familiarity.  I miss the noise, and the traffic, and the things to see and do.  I miss Starbucks, I miss friends dropping by whenever.  I miss the bright blue sky, and the long drives up the 5 freeway.  I know.  I'm totally mental.

The feeling kept me up, and I couldn't go back to sleep.  I think I need friends.  I'm going to miss our room mate when she goes back home.  I'm going to miss having a girlfriend to chat about things with, and to hang out with me while we go shopping (even if it's just for a loaf of bread).  I miss having people that know me, and want to spend time with me, and drink too much coffee at inappropriate hours. 

Yeah, I know.  It's all about me.  I'm kind of selfish like that. 

So many choices, it's a mess.

Even though we've lived here for, what, 4 months now, things in this house are ever-changing, and evolving as we get settled in.  So this means that about once a week I have to go through and start trying to put things away into one of the many storage areas we have (extra closests, spare rooms, upstairs, the basement, etc.).  Halfway through this endeavor I realize I need things like storage containers, or bookshelves, or whathaveyou, so I have to put the project on pause.

I decided, yesterday, on a list of things that were absolutely essential, so we went shopping.  I bought a little bookshelf for the kids' room, and some blinds for the kids room (I don't want to fit in so well here that I leave a blanket hanging in their window), blinds for the computer room, some picture frames, a new utensil can, blah blah blah.

That shit was really expensive, and I walked out of there about $300 poorer.  I didn't even get really big stuff, but the things I did get were big-ticket items.  Who knew that lamps for the nightstands in the bedroom would be so freakin' outrageous?  And we didn't even get the lamps I really wanted, since I didn't want to drop $100 on lighting.  I have to draw the line, people.

It feels like there is always something to do, always some room that needs a major overhaul, or new furniture (that hasn't been banged up by 3 different moves), and something somewhere always needs painting, and is the bathroom EVER going to be finished?  So it's kind of frustrating, and it doesn't help that I spent (for me) a pretty significant portion of money on stuff that, well, doesn't seem to be doing much in the way of getting our space situated.

It's like this house has TOO MANY options.  Too many rooms, too many places to put shit, too many things in general.  I have more places to store things than I know what do do with, but not enough things to actually organize the stuff we have.  Ugh.

And, to top it all off, our room mate decided last night that she's going back to California.  I think that's really the best decision for her, and I'm really happy for her that she's going to go home.... but what the HELL am I supposed to do with that room?

I have a sewing room, the kids have a play room, I don't really need an office area, we have a computer room, the girls have their room, and we already have a guest room.  How many freakin' rooms do we need?  I mean REALLY.

Maybe I should turn it into a library.  Or a bird sanctuary.  Or a garage for spare car parts.  Or fill it with treasures, and booby trap it, and seal it off from the rest of the house.

Or something.
 

So cute, I totally peed a little.

Awhile back I bought the Yoga Kids DVD set for the girls.  Marissa was mildly interested in it, but Phoebe loves it.  She likes to do the rocking horse and sing the song, and I'll catch her thumping her body on the floor, while she explains to me that she's doing her "Yoga Kids."

 But that's not the best part.

 The best part is what she just did.

She was standing in the kitchen, and she put her hands together, and did her little bow, and proudly proclaimed,

"That's called Namaste!"

And then I ate her up.