ON{the laundry}LINE: Friday Favourites

Well, my blogging might not be very consistent lately, but at least my Friday Favourites is. Maybe I should assign myself themes for other days of the week, it might encourage me to be more regular. (Ha, be more regular. Yes, I’m twelve. Move on.)

This week was less than stellar. Thanks to my eternal optimism, it actually took until yesterday evening to realize that this week sucked, badly. Olivia may or may not be teething. Her gums aren’t swollen or anything, but she’s crabby as heck every evening and then calms down about half an hour after I finally cave and dose her with Baby Advil. Also, she’s bitey, even for her. She’s made several attempts this week to bite off my face. And other parts of me. Not cool, Olivia. Not cool. Fortunately, she still won’t take a bottle, so I can’t give up on nursing. Her obstinance totally trumps my whininess.

However, as I was grumbling to my own self this morning about how little sleeping and how much go-to-your-room-ing my week contained, I thought about the fact that I know of two families who lost children this week, one in the blog world – a baby girl – and one in our “chain” of churches – a young boy. Very quickly my attitude changed. I put on my big-girl panties, started up the laundry, and dove into my daily mom-routines. Sometimes they suck, but I would be devastated if they ground to a halt. Just something to think about.

So, here’s what I think is the cat’s meow this week. (You like that? Cat’s meow? I caught myself typing the word ‘awesome’ for the six hundredth time this week so I figured I’d better backspace and come up with something less predictable. I don’t actually use the term ‘cat’s meow’ very much but it seems all my other common phrases are retro-surfer-phrases. Awesome! Stellar! Totally rad! Totally cool! Like, totally!)

-Lego sack tutorial. A friend and I got to talking about these things on facebook the other month, and now I’ve stumbled on a tutorial for it! I, personally, don’t believe in lego. I had four brothers and have stepped on enough legos to last me a lifetime. OUCH. I do, however, have pink megablocks.

-This awesomely cute headband tutorial over at You Seriously Made That. I think it’s hilarious that her husband found a headband in a parking lot and decided to bring it home for her to knock off. That’s beyond awesome. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of sad my husband has never brought anything home for me to knock off.

- First of all, you had me at easy. Secondly, for some reason my three year old would love to live in a perfect world where there are always napkins to wipe your hands and face. She’s never happier than when we get takeout and there’s napkins around. I should probably make her some cloth ones, since I’m having a hard time teaching her to just lick her fingers like the rest of us.

-From time to time I get asked how I find the awesome blogs/tutorials/etc that I find. A lot of it starts with www.oneprettything.com … many of my fav blogs and projects have been featured on that site. Also, from things like this post. Never underestimate word of mouth! (uh, finger…?) Lastly, I keep an eye on new posts at my favourite blogs. I do this using Google Reader. It’s like a digital newspaper that you fill with your favourite blogs. If you already use a blog reader, it’s really easy to switch to Google Reader. And why would you? Well, for the reason it’s my favourite blog reader EVA. The Google Reader Next Button. Instead of trying to explain it to you, I’m just going to link to a post that will do that for ya.

So with that homeschooling thing I was joking about last week… earlier this week I was considering sending Nicole to preschool. She needs something to channel her energy into, I think. And then a day or two later I asked her where a bruise on her leg came from and she told me I kicked her. And then she went and showed Chris and told HIM that I kicked her. And that he should kick my butt. And then I decided I will not be sending her out into the general public quite yet! Yay! But I will be doing preschool at home with her in the mornings, every weekday at 9:30. I started today and it was a huge hit. I’m going to be picking up a preschool activity book I was looking at at Costco the other week, but I’d love if anyone has any resources to share for teaching pre-K kids!

We’ve already learned the value of not trying to sharpen our finger in the pencil sharpener, so I think we’re off to a roaring start.