Trying to Stay Motivated... ok... kind of trying to stay motivated

For some reason (a long, wonderful break in sunny California), I find it very hard to stay motivated right now. Everything seems so insurmountable. The dishes seem like alps I have to climb wearing Teva sandals, and my carpet seems like a field of wheat I will never get harvested because all I have are nail clippers (okay not a perfect analogy, but I'm too unmotivated to even think of a proper one).

I have been trying to find little ways I can motivate myself. The problem is I am started not caring. After the 5,000,000th load of laundry, 12,000,000th load of dishes, or clearing the counter for the 150,000,000,000th time I tried listening to funny pod casts while I cleaned, but then we all got sick and even the humor wasn't enough to get me to do more than the laundry that was building up. Looking around my house I realized that I had two choices: continue not caring and die buried beneath papers brought home from school, and Pokemon cards; or find something to get me going.  Haven't found it yet, but hopefully something will pop up.

 Blogging has been a little of the same. There is too much I haven't gotten to that I have been avoiding it. So, I'm going to break it into manageable pieces and try. If I don't do it now, memories of the little things will get lost, and that would only make things worse.

*Little Snippets*
 For some reason I thought I should help with the 12 days of Christmas for the teachers at the school. The kids saw me getting out ingredients for sugar cookies and asked, very nicely, if I would make some for their classes too. Interesting fact: Icing over 120 sugar cookies can make your wrist hurt. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

I bought the kids a fun little treat of Lindt chocolate bears, or at least I thought it would be fun. Turns out we were all sorely mislead and the bears were hollow, which lead to much howling and gnashing of teeth. The kids weren't too happy either. Turns out we may not have been the only ones to be surprised. I saw this the next day at Walgreens:

When I stopped our newspaper for the holiday break I had to fill out a form online. This is a FORM that our NEWSPAPER created for people to fill out. I didn't type in anything, just picked from their selections. Someone, at a NEWSPAPER didn't think to maybe, I don't know, edit, their form (hint, look at last few words):

Because it was December I had to keep with tradition and make sure one of my hands was unusable. While cleaning a pasta maker I cut my finger tip almost all the way off. I'll admit it was not as obscure as homemade marshmallows, but it was unbelievably painful, and a little bit cool to look at. Luckily I have friends in high places who have access to sophisticated medical equipment, (my best friend's hubby had liquid stitch).

 Also, I found these. They made me laugh out loud in the middle of Target and people looked at me like I was crazy. I love that feeling, because I secretly know they are right, and they can only guess at it.

I Said I Was Taking A Year Off...And Then I Was Too Proud Of My Little Geeks

I think I have finally calmed down enough that I can talk about Halloween without howling and tearing clothing.  I told myself that this year we would just do store bought costumes since last year was so hard and I needed a 2 year break... at least.  Unfortunately we had just completed watching the whole Dr. Who series (to date) as a family (except a couple episodes I deemed too scary) and Ella really, really, really, wanted to do a Dr. Who theme.

As a nerdy/geeky mom and Halloween lover, this was heaven.  One of my kids wanted to do something amazing for costumes.   As a crazy person and realist I thought of a few reasons this was not a good idea: 1) You CANNOT buy Dr. Who costumes; 2) I get soooooooooooooooooo tired of everyone not knowing who we are; 3)  I am still tired of sewing from last year.

I debated back and forth for a while, but realized that they wont want to do Dr. Who forever, and they may not even want to dress up in a couple of years.  Plus, I love a theme.  We started planning in July, and though the costumes were deceptively simple, it took me to the first day they wore them to be completely finished.

Here is the fruit of my very bizarre, self imposed labor:

Ella really wanted to be Rose Tyler.  She is the Doctor's first companion in the rebooted series, and in one episode they go to the 1950's.  Ella was very specific about her costume choice.

Inspiration:

Ella:

Olivia flip-flopped about her costume.  First she wanted to be Amy, another companion of the Doctor, but then I asked what we would do without a TARDIS, and she immediately changed her mind and wanted to be the Time And Relative Dimensions In Space (the Doctors time machine).
Inspiration:

Olivia: Since the TARDIS is stuck as a 1960's phone booth we went with a kind of 60's feel to her clothes.  Her pillbox hat has a flashing light on it, just like the TARDIS!

Ethan really wanted to be a Dalek.

 I was a little concerned about how he would move around, go up stairs and trick-or-treat in a Dalek costume, so we talked about it and he agreed a Cyberman would be an ok alternative.
Inspiration:

Ethan:

The three kiddos together:

 Eric had agreed early on to dress up this year (most years he tells me 2 days before Halloween that he wouldn't mind dressing up, after I've asked repeatedly for weeks).  He had BY FAR the easiest costume.  He went as my favorite Doctor, number 10, and was able to wear his clothes from work to the Halloween party.
Inspiration:

Eric (with girls):

I had big plans for me this Halloween.  I was going to be one of my favorite Dr Who characters, a Weeping Angel.

I started the costume, tried it on and realized I looked less like a statue and more like a giant, grey circus

tent, so I scrapped it and ordered a pre-made Venetian costume I dyed to make look more like the grey I wanted.  I painted the hair piece, and made the wings out of thick foam board.  I was racing the day before our ward party to finish everything and I stabbed my thumb with an exacto knife finishing up the details and spent over an hour to get it to stop the bleeding.  Discouraged, I wanted to keep going, but when I went to screw the wings into the backing and the screw went right through and ripped up all my hard work I decided I was done.  They wouldn't be able to hold up the weight on my back with the ripped parts (but I might use them in Halloween decorating next year OTBS).

I wasn't going to dress up, but then I realized...

I could EASILY be Dr. River Song.  I happened to own all the elements of her costume, except the gun, which is easily remedied at Halloween time.

Inspiration:

Me (with my happy to be there Cyberman):

It took 2.5 hours to curl my hair like River's, but when I was done I realized that I happened to look a little bit like the 50 year old actress that plays her.  At least she is a young looking 50!

Also, OTBS (on the bright side) it gave me the best 2nd day hair EVER:

Here is our group shot:

Lots of blood, sweat and tears involved (all on my part now that I think about it), but in the end so worth it!!!

Humor in 2 parts: exasperation and prat falls

Conversation in primary yesterday while the kids were coloring on paper.

Sister Bohner: "Lily that is beautiful, what are you drawing?"
Lily: "It is my best friend. (looks over at Livi) It is you Olivia"
Olivia: "No I'm not.  I already have a best friend, Carter."
Lily: "Can I be your best friend too?"
Olivia: "(rolls her eyes and sighs LOUDLY) ooooo-kay."

I kind of wish a camera was there to get a video of the next part, but I didn't even get a picture.  I was too busy doing the ugly snot cry to think about it. 

Getting Livi's bed ready for nighttime: 

I ended up bruising the entire right side of my body, and scaring Livi at the same time.  I feel so stupid, but I am a little proud of the stick figure me, and her ability to say "no" to chocolate.