Gak!

In my never-ending search for fun stuff to do when my two nieces come to stay with me (that is, until they’re teenagers who want nothing to do with their old auntie and only want to text their friends), I found a great project that is simple, inexpensive and fairly un-messy (unlike this one we did last fall). 



To make Gak, all you need is

• Two 4 oz bottles of Elmer’s glue
• 1 tsp Borax (found in laundry detergent section)
• food coloring

Have your two nieces pour the glue into a large bowl.  I'm pretty sure it is impossible for kids not to get glue on their hands when they do this but I'm not sure why.  Then they can fill the empty glue bottles with warm water and shake them (tops on first!!).  Empty the glue-y water into the same bowl. 



Add some food coloring.  (Don’t argue about which color.)



Use lots of color for a brighter result.  I’ve read that neon colors are really fun to use but I didn’t have any of those.  Stir this up and set it aside.

Next, thoroughly dissolve 1 tsp of Borax into ½ cup of warm water.  Pour the warm water/Borax mixture into the glue and start stirring.  This is when the magic happens!

It becomes stringy almost instantly, which is very fun to watch!



Keep mixing using your hands and squishing it around.  After a few minutes of this most excellent fun, it will become firm and a perfect consistency to play with!


This can provide hours of fun (or minutes depending on age)!



A few side notes:  The gak does leave something on your hands – not gluey but just needs to be washed off when you’re done playing.  I had the girls play with it on the counter and in the bowl.  And someone did get some on their t-shirt… I couldn’t scrape it off but with a little Dawn treatment, it washed right out.  I also wouldn’t use gak with kids under 5 in case they just had to taste it.  I don’t know what Elmer’s would do in your tummy but it’s not worth the risk.

This was a really big hit with these 9 and 10 year olds! 

Gak.  Make some soon!

Need a smile?

I thought so!

source: erikjohanssonphoto.com

When you see a typo in the worship music lyrics
@stuffchristianslike
I wish I couldn’t relate to this at all.

A Public Service Announcement
@thefarmerswifetellsall
One glance up her little nostril and I knew we were in trouble.

And this one made my day...

Phone Photos

Here is a very random assortment of pics found on my phone today, in no particular order, which tell the story of my life…

Have you seen these in the dollar bin at Tarjay?  They make great ‘props’ for a photographer in Ethiopia to use to get babies to look at him and smile for a picture instead of burst into tears because he has a strange white face!  They light up and blink when you shake them and they’re made of that squishy rubbery stuff that’s fun to play with.  I had a terrible time getting them all to light up at the same time for this picture.  As soon as three were blinking and I shook the fourth, one would stop or fall over.  It was like trying to get four kids to look at the camera and not tussle with each other!  Just look at those mischievous expressions.

This is an envelope stuffed with old tubes of paint.  I found it in a box of my mom’s art supplies.  It’s a perfect example of how utterly organized and funny my mom was.  But the question remains: why did she save the ones that wouldn’t open?

A favorite necklace my oldest gave me on another Mother’s Day.

A beautiful lattè.

These are some cinnamon buns we made with my nieces a few weeks ago.  And below is the art project we did… 3D handprints.  Very cool and super easy!  Directions here.

Snapped a photo to send to our youngest of one of our favorite games to play when she’s home, letting her know that we were missing her.  I think I just made her more homesick.

Taken at my friend’s cabin in Washington a few months ago.  Sigh.  Wish I was there right now, don’t you?

I hope you had a good Mother’s Day.  Mine was without any of my girls at home (boo hoo) but they each called and I got some sweet cards in the mail.  I don’t think there is anything I appreciate more than a note written by my kids.  We had Jeff’s mom over for a yummy dinner that Jeff made.  And he spoiled me with beautiful flowers and some bamboo boxes I’ve been wanting for organizing – so happy!

And there you have it.  My life.

Mothers

If you are a mother, I hope this weekend is full of expressions of love and thanks for all you are as a mother.  But even if it’s not, I hope you make it a day of thanksgiving.  I ache for the women who long to be mothers and have a difficult time facing this holiday.  For those who feel like they have failed at being a good mother.  For those who grieve the loss of a mother or a child.  If that is you, join me in going right to God and get what He is so ready to give us - His mercy and His help.  Hebrews 4:16 

Here are some links that I hope you enjoy, including two from right here…

The photos on this first one are priceless!

Some things I have learned about being a Mom
@320sycamore
* dark colored boys’ underwear is your friend.

Avoiding Disappointment This Mother’s Day
@tolovehonorandvacuum
Commercials tell us that we’ll get flowers, and chocolates, and pampering, and kisses.  But what if we don’t?  What if we wake up on Mother’s Day and no one is whispering at us to stay in bed so that we can await our breakfast? What if people are yelling about, “what is there to eat?”, and “where’s my other shoe?”, and “Johnny’s bugging me.”


Mother's Day for the Brokenhearted
@onethankfulmom
This Sunday we will see women who are suffering because they have not been able to become mothers and there is severe aching in their hearts. What we may not see are the women who have children in prison, those who are walking the long journey of mental illness by their children’s sides, and mothers in the midst of painful struggles with children who have rejected the family, or forsaken the faith they once held dear.


Grateful
@haveacupwithmeTo be a mother means having your heart stretched beyond what you think is possible.  It’s facing up to your short-comings, finding out you know nothingand leaning heavily on God’s grace. 

Learned from my mom
@haveacupwithme
There are many things I learned from my mom - mostly by example rather than words.  I've spent the last few days trying to make a list (in no particular order of importance) of some of these bits of her legacy to me.

Why Mothers Cannot Give Up
@weareTHATfamily
We are amateurs in this teen mother-daugther world, she and I. We are learning how to dance through hormonal highs and lows, clothing battles, friendship heartaches and messy rooms. It’s not easy.

Tear-Stained Words of a Mother
@onethankful mom
When a family member has cancer, people surround you with love, they bring meals, send flowers, set up websites to assist you; they do anything to show they care. When your family member suffers from mental illness, no one brings you meals, or flowers or sets up websites to support you; they just stop talking about your son and they never mention his illness.

The Mystique of Older Motherhood or What A Crock
@antiquemommy
Sometimes y’all? The word Mom is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.  It tickles my ears like no music ever has. I remember how I longed and yearned to be called Mom for so long and it makes my heart melt like a popsicle on a summer day.  But then other times, after a long day, ‘Mom’ is the last word I want to hear.

And because I'm thinking lots about a precious baby on the way...

My adolescent hanging baskets

I do love a pretty hanging flower pot.  Does your town have hanging baskets along its main streets in the summer?  Ours does and they are so beautiful.

I’ve shared before about the hanging pots I bought with holes for planting flower starts.  I confessed that I almost killed the first batch I inserted a few years ago because I crammed them into the holes roots-first.  I am much wiser now and carefully wrapped the part above the dirt in a paper cone, then inserted it through the hole from the inside.  I'd recommend that plan instead of the mashing technique.

When you make hanging baskets this way, you’re in for an ugly season until they fill out and cover the entire pot.  It's kind of like that awkward phase when I was 13, mortified about my freckles and the space between my front teeth.  Of course it didn't help that most of my best friends were teeny little things under 5' tall and I felt like the Jolly Green Giant walking down the hall of my junior high school.  A giant with freckles and that space.

Poor thing.  You can try to tell it that one day this stage will pass and it will look radiant but it won't believe you.  It will be too self-absorbed and focused on those ugly spaces that don't have flowers in them because the gardener was too cheap to buy that many. (There are 29 holes in each pot... that's 58 plants if you filled each one!  Plus you won't even see these blank spots in a few weeks. There, now that I've explained myself I don't feel so cheap.)

I’m sure if you had a greenhouse and started them much earlier in the year, you could avoid this look.

But since I don’t have a greenhouse and since I spent the money on these pots, we're hanging them on the back patio until they fluff out a little bit. Then I (by which of course I mean Jeff) will move them up onto the deck where we see them every day.

I wanted to keep a list of the plants I used this year… this is more for me than for you because I’ll know right where to look at planting time next year.

1. bidens – Aloha yellow
2. calibrachoa – (Million Bells) double magenta
3. helichrysum – (Licorice vine)
4. brachyscome – (Rock daisy) blue-purple
5. wave petunia – purple and pink
6. bacopa – white trailing
7. lobelia – blue trailing

These pictures were taken a week ago, right after the pots were planted.  The poor things are drooping and in shock at being wrapped in paper and shoved through a little hole.  

You can see how my handy husband has a drip system for the pots.

After only a week, the plants have perked up and are turning their faces upward instead of hanging pitifully.

With a little Miracle Gro and these warm spring temps, it won’t be long at all before…


No more ugly!  No more comparisons to the other hanging pots.  No more worry about where to stand at the sock hop.

PS.  I am already trying to decide if I’ll do these next year.  If I factor in the soil and the number of plants I have to buy, I might be ahead in buying an already full and blooming hanging basket. 

I might be past the teen-aged mothering stage.

On my nightstand

I know I need to write something here because my last post has the word ‘Sunday’ in it, which makes it glaringly obvious that it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  A good blogger I am not.

I am a good reader and I just finished a couple of books…


Have you read this series?  This one, the third in the political thriller trilogy, came out recently and I’ve been on the library wait list until it came in for me this week.  It’s fiction but based on biblical prophecy.  Each of Rosenberg’s novels eerily match up with what’s happening in our world, though they were written prior to those events.  Start with the first in the series, though! 




This book won’t interest too many but I saw that this man lived through the period of Ethiopia’s history in the 1970’s and 80’s when civil war, famine and mass executions were widespread in that country.  {I remember first hearing of Ethiopia on TV when I was a teenager.   We often saw pictures of skin-and-bones children, covered in flies, with appeals to send relief money to help those starving people across the world.  I am really beyond amazed that God has called us to be working there.  It’s incredibly humbling and makes me know God is completely and wildly unpredictable!}  Our in-country staff have all lived through this tumultuous and dangerous period.  Although I still don’t understand all the factors that created that horrible situation, I learned a lot reading this book.


There are times when you really appreciate learning something.

Then there are times when you just want to be taken away.  So coming up next…


I read this description and thought it sounded just right:  “Miss Julia, a recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow, is only slightly bemused when a woman appears at her door with a youngster in tow and unceremoniously announces that the child is the son of Miss Julia's late husband. Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small Southern community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal - and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence turns her life upside down.  Fast-paced and charming, with a sure sense of comic drama, a cast of crazy characters, and a strong Southern cadence, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind will delight readers from first page to last.”

No recommendation, though, until I’ve read it!

Sunday gratitude

Today I am thankful for…

• daylight before I wake up
• the auto-timer on my coffee maker
• a reminder to look for the good (a grocery clerk who I noticed was suffering from terrible allergies who sincerely said with a smile, “But it’s only my nose, my eyes and my throat!”)
• a husband who does so much for me, even if I’m bossy
• the power of a kind word

What are you thankful for today?