Mary: March 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Girl Stuff

I can see myself in my daughter more and more each day.

Like today, for instance, Meici's cousin came over to play and was trying to teach her a bunch of Hannah Montana songs and how to pose like a model.

Meici just didn't get it.

Meici's cousin would say "like this, Meici!" and then strike a pose.
And then Meici would just stick out her tummy and shout "Care Bears STARE!!!"

When I was about 10 years old I went to a friend's birthday party and realized I was different from all the other girls. As my friend was opening her presents I became extremely nervous and embarrassed. All the other girls had given her stuff like, make-up kits, nail polish, cute purses and mini backpacks, and jewelry. When it came to my turn I wanted to die! First of all my gift wasn't wrapped in cute pink birthday paper like everyone elses, it was wrapped in Christmas paper (the only wrapping paper my parents ever bought) and this party was in the summer. Second, my gift was a puzzle. A puzzle. A 500 piece puzzle of some cottage in the woods. Some of the girls snickered and rolled their eyes when they saw it but the birthday girl was so sweet and thanked me for the gift. It was pretty embarrassing.

It just went downhill from there.
And I blame it all on my mother.

She kind of made me feel like all things girly were the devil!
When I was a kid I took hulu dance classes, and one night right before a recital my friend's mom was putting lipstick on her daughter and then she came over and put some on me. I was terrified. I kept thinking I'm so glad my mom's not coming to this recital because she would kill me if she saw me wearing lipstick.
Or sometimes I'd go to a friends house and they'd be doing their nails and I would just paint my toenails and then wear socks when I got home so my mom wouldn't find out.
She never let me get my ears pierced (they're still not) and made me feel like anyone who did was a bad person.
And I remember shopping for my first bra, with just my dad and three of my brothers. I was so scared and confused and they just told me to go hurry and get one. I had no idea what I was doing; where was my mom? It was like she was against bras too.

Okay so I don't think she was really against all this stuff and thought it was bad, I just got that impression from her.
She just wasn't into that kind of stuff, and therefore didn't teach me about it.

And now Meici and I are going through the same cycle.
I still don't wear any make-up, or paint my nails, or do my hair, or wear clothes that match, or wear clothes that even belong to me.

This is what I looked like today:

Everything you see belongs to my husband.

I just hope Meici doesn't see this lack of caring about my appearance and take it the wrong way. I don't want her to think looking nice is evil.
I am doing a little better though, the other day I bought chapstick that was tinted pink! And I made that picture of me really small because I guess I really do care what other people think.
I'm just really glad Meici has an older cousin who will guide her through things I just don't understand, like leg shaving and mustache bleaching and purse carrying.

Thanks to all of you who have donated to the Mother's Day project. It was a cold and snowy day today and I couldn't help but think of all the people out there who don't have a warm home to take shelter in, and how I wish I could help out more.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Some Buttons and a Challenge

Thar be some buttons for me service project!

Cute no?
I made them myself, which is probably why you answered, no.

And I have a little proposition to make.

If I can raise enough money to make just 15 baskets (see previous post), I will wear this dress to the CBC!

Did I mention I won the ticket giveaway!?
I'm so excited!

If this dress has been sold, I'll find a couple more dresses equal in cuteness and you can all vote.

I've caught the service bug, to which there is no cure... besides Satan.

I had to give a stinking talk in church a couple Sundays ago. I was so nervous, and tried my hardest to get sick. I didn't wash my hands for over a week, I touched library books, I ate my entire bag of Halloween candy all in one night, I stood right in front of people's faces when they looked like they were about to sneeze, and I even took a walmart shopping cart to the back of the store and made out with it, darn those antibacterial wipes they have at every store, how's a girl supposed to get out of a talk with all the sanitizing going around these days.

So, I didn't get sick and now I'm actually glad I was able to give a talk, because I learned a lot. The topic was serving the poor and the needy.
Why is it so important to serve?
Well, we all want to be more like Jesus, right? Even if you're not Christian, you probably agree that Christ is a pretty great role model.
And how was most of Christ's time spent on earth?
It was spent serving.
Serving the sick, the hungry, the naked, the poor, the outcasts, the lonely, the sad,the homeless. Dude, we could go on and on. His entire life was dedicated to service. He also told us to love thy neighbor as thyself. Some people might think, well, I don't love myself at all, matter of fact, I HATE myself, and I guess you could be a little right, I mean, you must hate yourself a little bit if you spend your time reading my blog. But I'm pretty sure you love yourself enough to feed yourself, clothe yourself, shelter yourself, bathe yourself, entertain yourself, make yourself comfortable, try to cheer yourself up when you're feeling sad, or calm yourself down when you're feeling insane. So I think that's what Christ meant by love thy neighbor as thyself. Just genuinely care about others and try your best to serve them.

So how can I better serve others?

The blogging answer to this is HAVE A GIVEAWAY!!! YAAAAAY!!!

Here's the deal. You've been praying for opportunities to serve, right?
Well, Mother's Day is coming up and I'm in charge of putting together a little service project for the women in my church.

I've decided to make Mother's Day gift baskets for the mothers living in local homeless shelters and domestic abuse shelters.
My church's budget is tight and I want to make as many of these gift baskets as possible, so to enter the giveaway all you have to do is send me an item that any mother would like to receive in a gift basket, for example, your favorite snack or candy bar, or your favorite lotion- stuff like that. Or send an item on one of these urgent needs lists, published on the women's shelter website. Here's the list for the YWCA. (click on "wish list") This is the the list for The Road Home (click on "needs list"), and this is the list for the South Valley Domestic Violence Shelter.

Or you could donate a nickel or two or three or forty via paypall. Or you could just blog about this giveaway, or facebook it, tweet it, or yell about it in a crowded movie theater right before the movie starts. Or if you own a movie theater maybe you could donate some movie passes, or if you own or know someone who owns a restaurant or grocery store maybe they could donate some gift certificates to put in these baskets.

Come on people let's do some good, it's a wicked world out there, and I know God promised He would never flood the earth again but He didn't say anything about blizzarding it, or making it smell like feet or bringing back the dinosaurs.

And I know times are rough right now, believe me I know! My husband just started a new job last month after an entire year of being unemployed. A YEAR! With no income whatsoever.

But did you see the items that are needed? It's stuff like deodorant, socks, shampoo, lotion and underwear. You guys have got that stuff pouring out of your sinks, right? Well, I do anyway.

I feel really guilty about asking for help, especially since I didn't donate a snuggie to Kristina's snuggie drive, and I couldn't even go to her snuggie party because it was at a snuggie buffet and I can't even afford to snuggie get in. So I know it's hard to help out financially, but I did put her snuggie button on my side bar, and I have linked the word "snuggie" to her snuggies for seniors drive about 20 times in this one paragraph. So that's a cheap and easy way to help out.

If you'd like to donate an item just email me at imgoingtoemailmary@gmail.com and I'll email you back my address.
Or just donate via paypall, every penny helps.

If everyone who reads this just donates one dollar, it would double our budget. Two dollars would triple it and three dollars would... I don't even know, octuplets? Whatever, it would definitely give the budget stretch marks.
Oh and I almost forgot to tell you what the prize is for this giveaway!

Each person that helps out in any way, not just with this service project but with any act of service gets.........

one tiny step closer to becoming like our Savior!

What better prize is there than that?!

Friday, March 26, 2010

That last post wasn't about Evan's birthday at all.

My last post was supposed to be Evan's birthday post, but I kind of got carried away with talk of aging and bad parenting. So here's Evan's real birthday post.

I wasn't just running around the house freaking out about having a five year OLD son. We actually did some celebrating too.
First we went to the discovery gateway museum .

If anyone wants to know what China is like just go to that museum on a Saturday and imagine all the kids have black hair, are speaking Chinese and have their crotchless pants tucked into their socks. I guess what I'm trying to say is that on Saturdays the discovery gateway museum is extremely crowded, as crowded as a Chinese subway station,

so pretty crowded, don't go there on a Saturday.
This picture was taken on a normal Sunday morning on our way to church, we had to hold our kid's hands really tight.

We took Evan, Meici and two of their cousins to the museum, but none of their parents. It was just me and Z trying not to lose four little kids. Holy cow we almost didn't succeed. We thought it would be easy, you know, I watch two kids, Z watches two kids, but there were hundreds of kids there, how are you supposed to know which one is yours, they're all about the same size and all have shirts on, so it's pretty tough.

Then we went to McDonalds and got all the kids happy meals.

I don't have the proof, but they really did get happy meals, I'm not a liar.

Then we came home for pizza eating, cupcake decorating,

present opening,

and pinata spatula-ing.

Pretty fun day.

I love this kid so much; he's the sweetest little boy I've ever had an epidural for. Just this morning while I was sweeping the kitchen floor he came in and said, "Wow Mom, it sure is clean in here. You did a great job, thanks so much for cleaning the floor."
So what if he didn't offer to help, at least he appreciates the work I do. He's going to make some woman very busy, but feel very appreciated.

He's such a great big brother too. He loves playing with Meici, even when Meici doesn't really feel like playing, he demands she play with him, or else...

He is also very obedient, whenever I tell him to clean his room he hurries to it without complaining, but then later when I open his jammie drawer I find all his toys that used to be on the floor.

Evan loves wearing hats.

Especially his army helmet. Whenever we're about to leave the house he says, "oh wait, gotta get my helmet." He's so cautious.

He wears it at the store.

Okay, so it's not really a "store" it's the DI.
What?
We go there to DONATE!
It's not like we bought all our dishes and furniture there.
we really did

He wears it to the library.

He wears it in the bathtub.

And he wears it when he goes dragon slaying.

He does not, however, wear it when he gets a hold of the camera and takes self portraits.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Happy Birthday Evan!

Evan turned five on Monday, and I turned 68.
Five seems so old to me; I can remember being five, I can remember it! That means Evan will remember a lot of the stuff he's going through right now, this FREAKS ME OUT!
I can't use my he's-so-young-he'll-never-remember-this excuse when I laugh at him for losing at Candy Land, or when I turn the smoke detector on and yell "OH NO!!! It's the Monster alarm! Hurry kids run to your rooms and be very quiet so the monster can't find you! RUN! It should be safe to come out in about an hour or two, I'll let you know" because I want a moment of peace and quiet.
I can't do this stuff anymore.
I want my kids to think back on their childhood and smile, or at least shrug their shoulders and say "meh, I guess it could have been worse."
I don't want them to look back on their childhood and have to lock themselves in the dark water heater closet and have a good cry for the next 48 hours, like I do.

So, from now on I'm creating lasting happy memories for my kids.

Right after they finish their ramen noodles, that I so lovingly added frozen corn to, we're going outside on a bear hunt.
You know that little chant:

But we just substitute things like the tall grass, or the icky sticky mud, for things we come across on our walk, like:

Oh no! A dirty syringe! (we live in a questionable neighborhood)
Can't go over it.
Can't go under it.
Gotta go around it!

The kids love it.
bye.

Friday, March 19, 2010

AnthroPOOlogie

I have a confession to make: I am absolutely in love with all things Anthropologie!
For a while I would read people's blogs and they'd mention anthro, but I honestly had no idea what they were talking about.
So I googled it and discovered it was a clothing line, wow!

I searched the site and found out why everybody is so in love with these clothes.

Here are some of my favorite items:

So flippin cute right?
Sure, you could just raid your grandmother's closet, or go to the D.I. thrift store and find items similar to Anthro's,

but then you'd have so much money left in your bank account, you probably wouldn't know what to do with it all, so you'd end up buying something bad for you, like drugs or a lion.

Why pay $4 for this jacket at the DI