Our group won gold for their age group (over all 5 – 8 ) and first place for their dance/size/age group, which is phenomenal considering most of our group is barely six (and a couple that are five, and a couple that are 7) and they were exhausted and it was the first time out for all but three of our eight. Phenom indeed. Oh, and they *might* make it onto the upcoming episode of Dance Moms. How exciting. Oh, did I mention we had to wait around till something like 7 PM for the awards ceremony? Oh yah. We played twister. We ate. We ran. We rested. We shopped. And then around 8/8:30 we packed it in and headed home. We dropped our passengers off at their home and I decided “daddy is still at work… work is on the way home… let”s visit daddy!” So little miss raccoon eyes and I swung by the shop and hung out for a bit. We made it home around 10 PM. Then we took off the make up, and fed the bellies and crawled into bed. I bet there was more, but really, who needs more?

It took me all weekend to recovered. Kudos to those who had to be there both days. I am decidedly not looking forward to then. Maybe E won”t be participating in Company by then… but I”m not holding my breathe.

No photos please, my raccoon eyes aren't photogenic

Competition season has started and we are off to Hollywood Vibe tomorrow. Now, if you are unfamiliar with Hollywood Vibe, it’s a weekend long convention that runs classes and competitions. My little one is in the “mini” category, so she (thankfully!) only goes one day, but what a long day it is! We’ll be up no later than six tomorrow morning (no big deal some of you may say, but she has a hard time rolling out of bed by 7:45 most mornings… so do I!) and we won’t be home until probably close to ten at night.

Today my day will be filled with packing up her makeup case, costume, extra clothes, her dance bag, curling & cutting her hair piece, last-minute rehearsals, it just goes on and on and yes, on. It’s now hours after I started this post. I have a quick run to CVS to make. My hair piece will not curl. Hopefully they have something close to matching that will be good enough just for tomorrow. The suitcase is packed. It’s overkill for one costume *but* it’s also holding the makeup box, all the shoes, jacket &pants… everything really *and* it should free up an arm (or two is E can pull it!)

I don’t even want to think about it.

Have I mentioned I took one dance class in my entire life? When I was maybe four? So last year I was a hot lost mess. This year I’m on the ball. This year is going so much smoother. I love this year. My little one is taking four classes this year, which is no means a lot, really, considering some of those girls are there from nearly open to close four and five days a week. It’s a lot to me though. Some weeks I feel like I never see my boys, and part of me goes “better to not see them than to drag them all over creation attending dance things where they will be bored to death” and part of me goes “but… but… we miss them we does!” (part of me is Smeagol on occasion) I think Sunday will bring some intensive family time doing something or other. Well, in between Hebrew school & music classes.

Eshiva and her company group had their first competition on Saturday at Nexstar. They did amazing!

So, here is her *mumbles* freaking dollar company uniform tracksuit:

Super cute? Yes. Over priced? Yes. Will it fit next year, and the year after? It fucking better

Before they went on:

So, K’s mom was freaking out b/c she somehow got a hole in her *new* tights, but thankfully K and her tights are more or less the shame color and the hole was on the inner thigh, so she had the studio owner, the company coach, and the other two group parents telling her to calm herself down it’s not the end of the world. K’s mom was more nervous than K

Isn’t she cute??

and the trophy:

Her group won high gold for their category and age range, and won third over all for category. Not too bad for their first real time out, especially for the number of kids that were there.

Since she is a group, the trophy has to live at Mrs. P’s. She got to bring it home over the weekend (b/c the other two girls in her group had to split before awards were given out) and Michael and I went to a trophy store today and ordered her one that she can keep. I can’t see doing it every time, but this time was special. 15$ well spent, IMO. She’ll have it on Friday

The internet is a wonderful thing. This week alone we’ve looked up naked mole rats, Harry Potter costuming, replaced a broken toy, and a handful of other things. We also got a new-to-us kids-sized game table from our local FreeCycle which the kids are loving.

There is something to be said for hanging out with your kids though, even if it’s just watching a movie or eating dinner or some other daily drudge type thing.

So, it probably won’t be another month until you hear from me again, but it wouldn’t surprise me either. I’m having gutters installed today. I’m talking to Dad about replacing the drywall in the front room, laying some new carpet and some other misc. household improvement items. I want to put up some real shelves too – get rid of the bookcase shelves. I just told Michael, if I can’t do the entire room at once, I can do a small part, right? Hey, a million pennies is 100,000 dollars, right? You gotta collect those one at a time.

Yesterday was the first real day of summer vacay for us – all school classes are over, recitals are completed, graduations are finished. Yesterday brought us speech therapy (every Monday and Tuesday morning until the end of summer, when the schedule changes back to after school), yard work, the gas station, the bank, gifted testing, lunch, the library, visiting some friends, guitar class and dinner at 8!

Malachai was tested for gifted yesterday morning, and the school psychologist (who has observed him briefly but I guess never worked one on one with him) said she sees why he has/needs an aide in class. I am kind of relieved to tell the truth, because at his IEP we were having a hard time explaining that yes, he does great in class… because h has an aide! She also said that while he definitely passed the testing, he would have done much better if he could have stayed focused and on task. So, my all over the place son passed the gifted testing even without an aide to redirect him to stay on task. He continues to baffle me, but in a good way. Perhaps he will build that time machine when he grows up… right after he is done being a stuntman for the newest summer blockbuster action flick. Having a “special needs” child who doesn’t “show” or “present”  as being special needs is a challenge in and of itself. We had some friends over, one of who works with autistic kids every day and he said if we hadn’t told him, he never would have known about Mal. That makes me so happy on the one hand, but on the other hand, it does make it more difficult for us on his bad days when he absolutely presents with all of his symptoms, and usually all at once. So hearing how well he is doing, and how far he will go just makes me smile all over.

Dorian finished his first guitar book yesterday as well. Apparently he has quarter notes down (um, all he plays is “Turning Japanese” so duh he has his quarter notes down!) and played some new songs yesterday. Maybe we’ll get something besides Iron Man and Turning Japanese now. One can only hope. I think he said they did a Beach Boys song and a Beatles song.

Eshiva had her recital on Saturday. No pics, as they were supposed to be prohibited (which didn’t keep an ton of asshole parents from taking bright ass flash photos of their kids on stage, grrrr) but we’ll get a video sometime soon (it was rolled into the cost of the recital fee). E did a beautiful job. In fact, the entire recital was awesome. One of the groups did a shortened version of “Oh Industry” (I love this and have never seen a bad performance of it), and another did “Hard Knock Life”, really the entire thing was great. The babies were cute, the middle range of kids were trying their best and the older girls were all amazing. All but the littlest did the finale. They did “Thriller”! Very cute.

We all hit the library yesterday. Esh had a one hour book reading thing and made a couple of book marks. The boys picked out books to check out. Dor got WWII books and a couple of novels (Time Warp Trio and Lucy’s Ghost I Think), Mal got GooseBumps and one other, Esh got an awesome book about different phoenixes, a baby book about tickling a duck and one other. I’m pretty stoked about being at the library twice a week. The kids signed up for a summer reading program where they get prizes and I told them we’ll keep track of what books they read and we’ll get them a prize at the end of the summer too. The boys go today for a craft class. I think today is an aquarium.

Camp starts next week, Wed – Fri for them, so I’m hoping to pick up some work. I’ve got a logo in the works, and a site that I am waiting on some info for, but nothing else on the horizon right now. It might be the perfect time to start tattooing again. I have some ideas for my lower legs now, so it might work out well.

I was busy remembering stuff yesterday and I want to remember it here too, so bear with me please.

Oh, funny. My mom used to call me Jenniter. Don’t ask. So, the kids were playing janitor today (don’t ask) and I hear Eshiva in the background and I swear I heard Jenniter, not janitor, and it reminded me of mom. So I am telling Michael about this and I say she used to call me Jenniter in the drum, and I have no idea. …He says no! There was a liquid draino type product called janitor in a drum. So yah, my mom called me a cleaning product (which is funny in an ironic kind of way if you think about it) and I suspect I have a new (old) nickname lol Now that I think about it, when I call Gram she still calls me Jenniter too. Funny stuff.

One of moms friends sent me this:
When mom was in Israel she wrote profound poem that I often quote.
“be patient
Peace will come
And when it does
It will be like
A tidal wave upon humanity”

I want to do that One Step on my leg and I am thinking about incorporating this, but I see it as pictures not as words… like a traditional peace dove flying over a horizon with a big wave washing up on the shore, but the shore will be something to symbolize humanity, not an actual shore. I need to think about it for a while. I just see the two ideas tying together really well.

1. What’s your natural color? as an adult, boring old brown
2. What’s your current color?auburn, red, faded red
3. What’s your favorite color?red!
4. Would you dye your kids hair if they asked you to? (We’re talking about the grade school crowd here)we’ve dome streaks, but not the entire head
5. Mohawk: Yes please or over my dead body?not in a long time, but I’d be down for one… not on the kids. I hate seeing mohawks on kids. Can’t explain it, it just bugs me

Let’s go back to the beginning. I started all but one of my current plants from seed. I didn’t expect it to work, it never had before. Lo and behold, I made plants! Well, I can grow a baby, so of course I can grow a plant. Shhh, it’s actually easier to grow a baby!

Let’s also skip my early attempts. I planted in paper Dixie cups, figuring once I had a great rootball I could put the cups in my compost bin (which I’ve had for a couple of years now). I got two full cycles out of those cups, and they did make it into my bin, but newspaper cups? Way easier. I promise.

First, gather your supplies. You’ll need an empty soda or juice can (or a juice cup about the same size, the key here is for it to be a perfect cylinder, not angled!), some old newspaper, planting soil*, seeds, and a low-sided box OR a low-sided plastic bin (see photos), both large enough to hold however may pots you are making.

*A note on your soil: if it feels too heavy for the size of the bag, it’s probably top soil and not good for planting. If it feels light, too light for the size of the bag, it’s probably perfect.

Step 1: separate your newspaper. Each full page will make two pots. Fold your full page in half, to make a half page, then fold it in half again to make a quarter page, then fold it in half again to make an eighth page. Now rip your paper down that last fold so you have two pieces. Do this until you have enough pieces for however many pots you want to make. I find it kind of tedious and usually only make 10 or 12 at a time.

Step 2: Now that you have all your pieces ready, stack them out of the way (weight them down if you do this outside!) and grab one and your can (or cup – I’ll be referring to your can from here on in… the one if your hand, not the not the one attached above your legs) and roll it up like in the photos below.

The paper should have about two inches hanging off the end of the can.

Steps 3, 4 & 5: On the side with the overlap first, bend in the bottom of the paper. See photos below. Then do this twice more (you can maybe get four folds, but three seems to be adequate) and there is your basic paper pot.

Step 6: Before you put the pot down, fill it with dirt! The dirt is what keeps it together, so if you set it down before filling it, it will pop open and you will have to repeat the last three minutes or so of your life.

Don’t pack the dirt in, but lightly pack it, like sifted flour or unpacked brown sugar. Lightly tap it down so it is dense enough to stay in but loose enough to allow sprouts out.

Step 7: Here comes the plastic or cardboard box. Put your paper pot in the box. This helps keep them contained for planting and watering, and when it is time to transfer your plants, it lets you carry thrum around easily. See, we’re thinking ahead!

Step 8: Using your pointer finger and poke a hole in your lightly packed soil up to the first knuckle. Most plants are good at this depth, but if your seed packet says otherwise, make a deeper or shallower hole. Do this in each of your pots.

Step 9: Sow your seed. No, not like a man, spraying it everywhere. Depending on what you are growing, drop 3 – 5 seeds into each hole (really though… I plant 4 – 6 bean seeds per hole, everything else I pour in and hope it isn’t too much, we’ll thin our seedlings later anyway) and then cave in the surrounding soil on top of your seeds. Feel free to get more soil from your bag to cover it if desired. Water lightly and walk away!

It can’t get any easier. Make sure your new plants are protected from rain and wind. I keep mine on my front porch, which is covered, and against the inside wall. South Florida torrential downpours still make their way in, but not enough to flood the seeds or ruin the pots. I made the mistake of leaving seedlings out back and the downpour one day ruined four packets of seedlings.

If you purchased the plastic bins, you can use the lids and make a mini hot house inside under a window.

Now, just water this daily (or as needed, the soil should be moist, not soaking wet) for 4 – 8 weeks and you’ll have plants ready to be put in the ground, no de-potting required! The newspaper pots will compost naturally in the ground.

Jenn is a stay at home mom in South Florida. By day she kisses boo-boos and bakes cakes, by night she is a writer, entrepreneur, lover and all around goddess. You can contact her at jenn@quirkymom.com if you have lots of money to throw at her for looking pretty or any other reason.

Came home, cleaned the kitchen, ranted for a bit. Michael left for work and dad went with me to Whole Foods and Home Depot. Picked up probiotics for Malachai . I’m a little worried about his gastro-issues. He is always gassy (seriously foul gas) and only has a BM every other/every third day. He isn’t in pain though. It’s probably his dairy and carb intake, but… the boy lives on dairy and carbs. Autism and GI problems go hand in hand. Mal only sees his normal ped. We don’t go to the neuro anymore, never had a developmental ped, no gi docs. We see the nutritionist once a year, but she is mostly there to make sure he gets a varied and complete diet and isn’t deficient somewhere. So here’s hoping the probiotics work! I also picked up some digestive tea for my dad, which I hope he uses.

After WF we went to Home Depot and ogled fridges. Remember last month when we had to empty and defrost the fridge? It did it again. I give up. We got this bit of love. They didn’t have the one I had chosen in stock, so they marked this one down to the lower price. Yay! It’s still about 600$ more than I had planned on spending. Boo It was also 10% off plus we’ll get 20% back from the state for buying an EnergyStar rated fridge. Yay again! It wont get delivered until May 1, so thankfully we have the fridge in the garage to move the dairy & meat to. I don’t think we lost too much. It’s inconvenient, but it could be worse.

Also picked up some sod to cover a bare spot in the front yard and bought a tangelo (honeybell!) tree (impulse buy). Got home and Michael vacuumed out my car (the sod made a huge mess) and dad and I cleaned out the front yard area. I planted Eshiva’s shrub after that. I’ll need Michael to help me dig some holes for the trees.

Um…. dinner time? We need to clean some more. The party is tomorrow. The boys are excited! Me too

but first, let me remember this, since FB doesn’t exactly archive my status updates lol

sometimes I hear some one banging around downstairs and I still think it’s my mom banging in the ceiling in the garage to come have a smoke with her. She’d also sing “knock two times on the ceiling if you want me, ttwice on the pipes if the answer is no” once I got down there. Silly memories.

Five hours ago:

Just bought 6x40lb of top soil and compost. Have one bag at home plus equiv of 3 bags in various pots. My garden is coming together

Four hours ago:

weeding… quickest way to weed without chemicals or fire? Yah, I can’t find one either. I want one of those mantis tiller things! I’ll be outside in the scorching sun with a hand rake. Ugh.And my gloves? They were either sized wrong, or there is a HUGE difference between med & large, b/c med is tight and actually kind… of hurts and lg is freaking huge and useless.

Right now:

The box is put together (finished around 2PM). We used 6 1″x4″x8′ – three of them cut in half and a piece of scrap wood from the trash bin at Home Depot for the corner braces. Michael did most of this work. I hadn’t planned on him doing it, but he got to be a man today and play with power tools, something we rarely do. My box is only three sided, as the fourth long side is the side of the house. Mistake? I hope not!

After the box was built I weeded about 1/6 of it (hence the weeding FB status) and then Michael did a little more than I did but on the other side. Then he went to Lowes and bought a hand tiller and finished it in about 20 minutes.

I laid newspaper to block the weeds from regrowing. Filled it with my 7 bags of compost & soil… Michael is picking up about 6 more bags of top soil for me after Dorian’s guitar lesson.

I already moved four pumpkin plants, should have waited though. Waiting on the rest of the soil to move everything else.

So, that was my day!