Christmas pom-pom garlands
Let’s get this out of the way up front: I dislike Christmas decor.
I mean, it’s fine in other people’s houses. I know plenty of people who love decorating for the holidays and their homes look wonderful.
But in my house? Ugh. It always feels cluttered and over-full during the month of December, once we’ve pulled out the lights and stockings and Santas and tinsel garlands … and the giant wooden gingerbread man that seemed like a fun idea at the time. Then there’s the (special but admittedly gaudy) tree itself.
Basically, I’m taking deep breaths and looking forward to the lovely season of decluttering and organization — a.k.a. January. That’s my Christmas.
Of course, my children adore Christmas and all of the decorations that come with it. So I thought I’d make an effort to replace a few pieces with ones I liked better — specifically, something simpler.
I decorated bedrooms for two tweens a few months ago and fell in love with the sweet pom-pom garlands I’d made for their rooms. So I picked up packages of red and white pom-poms and made a few to swag over the windows in our living room.
These are SO easy to make!
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Notice me Senpai?! My 8-year-old’s secret admirer
Well, that was unexpected! My eight-year-old son just came home with what may be the most … unusual … secret admirer note?
In case you’re not used to kiddie-writing, it says …
Dear Dexter,
Hi. I really like you. Like not as a friend. Like a boyfriend.
I always call you Senpai. You’re my Senpai.
I always look at you at recess.
Love from, your secret admirer
***
Adorable, right???
It was typical cute-kid stuff, really, except for the word “Senpai.” I thought it might be Mi’kmaq since it’s the third language of our school, and both D and C take Mi’kmaq lessons every week. Or possibly another Japanese word for Sensei, but that seemed far-fetched.
A quick Google search and I figured out that “Senpai” basically means someone who is older than you and/or more experienced than you, and the phrase “Notice me, Senpai” is a cool way of talking about your crush when you don’t think they know you exist. (D was very flattered by this point.)
But wait! It gets even more … interesting?
D and I found a cute-looking anime video on YouTube called “Notice me Senpai” and figured this is likely where an elementary-aged kid in Nova Scotia learned about the phrase.
Naturally, we watched it …
At first, it was very sweet! The girl likes the boy! The boy actually looks a little like D! Aww.
Senpai, I saw you at school today
Took your picture then I snuck away
I want you to notice me …
but I’m just someone you don’t notice!
Then things took a dark turn …
Please notice me, Senpai
Please notice me, Senpai
or others will have to die
EVERYONE ELSE MUST DIE
ONLY YOU AND I WILL BE LEFT STANDING
WHOAH THERE’S BLOOD ON MY KNIFE
AND I DON’T KNOW WHY
Luckily, my darling boy didn’t seem freaked out. He’s happy with his note, and suspects it’s either a fellow Grade 3 or a girl in the 2/3 split class.
I suggested he give the note to his teacher and ask her to pass it around the staff room for handwriting identification. He loved this idea, so YOU’RE WELCOME, TEACHERS! 😉
In the meantime, um, I suppose we’ll be on the lookout for little girls at our school who love anime and perhaps show murderous tendencies to other little girls who may stand in her way of winning my boy?
GRADE 3, WHAT THE HELL?!?!
The pressure of ‘believing’
Welcome to Veggie Village, the very boring column where we talk about forcing our kids to eat vegetables because we’re mean. Today I’m going to share my favourite methods for steaming broccoli and how to … OK, that should guarantee any kids have stopped reading …
I could say this is the year it happened, but it actually may have started last year when our son was in Grade 2. It wasn’t dramatic.
He came home from school and matter-of-factly announced, “Some kids on the bus said there’s no Santa Claus.”
My reply is always the same. “Wow, that’s not nice. Santa’s not going to like that!” He really isn’t.
Our daughter, who’s only in Grade 1, piped up another day that she’d heard the same thing. (Their bus ride is about five minutes long and yet it’s plenty of time to learn bad words, tell scary stories that will upset them later at bedtime and potentially ruin Christmas magic.)
“A girl on the bus said Santa’s not real, but I don’t believe her because I want presents!” she chirped. Our son quickly agreed.
I really don’t know what they believe about the big guy in red. We have always been a little loose about the details …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
***
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The Fortnite fight
Our eight-and-a-half-year-old son is obsessed with being allowed to play Fortnite and I am obsessed with saying “no.” (At least, that’s how he perceives this thing called “trying to be a good parent and never being quite sure.”)
Here’s why he insists it’s a good idea I let him play Fortnite …
1. All of his friends play it.
First of all, this isn’t even true. But he claims everyone else (well, almost everyone) is allowed to play Fortnite and I’m the only stick-in-the-mud parent. I asked him if his friends jumped off a bridge, would he? He looked at me blankly and said, “There … aren’t bridges in the game.”
2. The dances.
He’s got a point here. The only nice thing about Fortnite, in my opinion, is that its popularity has encouraged my serious little robot child to dance. The game is responsible for dance crazes like The Floss, The L, Best Mates and Groove Jam. They’re adorable, like this generation’s Macarena. Apparently, there are also lots of silly costumes, like spacesuits and dinosaur outfits, that appeal to younger kids like him.
3. It’s free.
He thinks this is a great selling point. It is not.
He regularly pleads for this game and I give him my usual string of reasons why I’m not letting him play Fortnite yet …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
How we (finally) moved our shed
YouTube tutorials can be a wonderful resource when you’re trying something new. They can also fill you with false confidence and convince you to try a stupid (and potentially dangerous) idea that will leave everyone in a panic.
It all started with the placement of the shed (technically a baby barn) in our backyard. It was strangely positioned about six feet away from our deck, with a winding garden behind it. It made an already-narrow yard feel even narrower, and we talked for years about moving it … somehow … to the back of the property instead.
Well, YouTube to the rescue! We stumbled upon a video (I think it was this one) that showed a guy moving a huge shed “by hand” by rolling it on long wooden polls. It sounds crazy and, it turned out, it was crazy, but it seemed doable. Didn’t the pioneers always load barns onto logs and move them to a new homestead of something? It seemed legit.
At $30 for six posts, we decided to give it a try and see if it worked. Without going into too much detail — because no one should try this at home — we started by jacking up the shed. I was freaking out the whole time, positive the whole structure was going to come crashing down on my husband’s foot (or head).
We slipped the posts underneath and rigged up wooden skids and a pathway of pavers. The idea was that the shed would smoothly roll along them to its resting point at the back of the yard. (Fat chance.)
We pulled … and pushed … and cursed. The shed barely budged. YouTube had lied to us!
I was frustrated, but my poor Handy Husband was in such a state I was worried he’d have a heart attack. We’d torn out our garden, we’d uprooted the once-stable shed and we’d wrecked a good chunk of the yard. He actually sank down to the kitchen floor, distraught. I needed to do something!
He said we’d probably need an excavator, so I made a couple of quick calls and found a local guy who came highly recommended. He was over within the hour, and for a hundred bucks he lugged the shed exactly where it needed to be. It remains the best $100 we’ve ever spent, on anything. We were both so relieved.
Of course, the project wasn’t totally finished. We still had a large area of our yard to re-sod (another $100), re-level and secure the shed on the uneven ground, and we also built a small deck at the front.
We plan to run power out there at some point. (Right now we just have long heavy-duty extension cords.) Handy Husband sometimes talks about replacing the wooden doors with an aluminum sliding garage-style door, but I argue that it wouldn’t leave room for pretty exterior lights, so we’ll see what happens.
For now, we’re just happy the shed is in a much better spot — tucked right at the back of the yard — leaving the rest of the grass free for the kids and their friends to run around. It looks better back there and it also makes the yard look larger.
And if, for whatever reason, we lose our minds and decide to move that darn shed again? We skip the wooden posts and immediately dial the friendly guy with the excavator.
We’ve learned our lesson.
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Heather's Handmade Life 