The Problem of Time

I have two small(ish) children, (please take a moment to meet seeds.) We have two cats. My sweet, talented and ambitious husband has a day job, and is starting a business. This in reality means two jobs. I am trying to find a least one or two careers for myself. I have two blogs, and about two tons of extra-curricular interest, too many to list here. We only have one car, and strangely only one me.

Managing time is the biggest problem I seem to have. This is not an exhaustive list, but it helps. This is how get to all the things I need to, and sometimes I get to do the things that I want to.

• Let some things go. There is cat hair on my duvet. I did not send out any cute holiday cards or organize the cookie exchange this year. I said no. I let some things go. This is the most difficult thing to do. If you read a few blogs – especially ‘Mom-themed’ blogs, you could start to believe that there are women who do “do it all”. They have perfectly behaved children who were potty trained at 18mo.; they blog about designing a line of hand painted greeting cards while their artisan bread rises but only on their days off from underwater Sanskrit brain surgery. Fact: there are people out there who do MORE than you do. So what? It is your life. Spend a little time to prioritize, draw a line and everything below it, LET IT GO. Give yourself a little acceptance. This has given me a handle on my time. It may sound trite, and that’s because you will never have the time to knit that sweater or write that novel or learn to oil paint if the cat hair on the duvet is keeping you up at night. I just read a great blog post about even reusing a few towels to cut on the laundry.

• A little organization goes a long way. I am the least organized person that I know. I know that it is not my nature. If you are someone who can find the stamps right now, I commend you. I know I have a lot to learn. One of my new year’s resolutions was to use organization as a way to get stress out of my life. My 5yo son hates to get dressed in the morning. It takes forever, it takes tears, and it often takes the entire family to get an appropriate type and quantity of clothes on the boy. In the last couple of months, I have started laying out the kids’ clothes the night before. It takes the exact amount of minuets to select skivvies and a sweatshirt, but not the ever-precious and bleary-eyed morning minuets. The same goes for planning meals out for the week, instead of trying to come up with some thing on the way home from swim class. Even, steal one of my dinner (now!) ideas. Whatever that all consuming, stress inducing, time-suck there is, see if a little bit of planning and organization can take some of the stress out of it.

• Use the Technology. I know you have a computer, (or at least a smart phone). There right now you have more technology readily available than all of our fore mothers combined. The trick is to use it and not let it use you. You gotta love the UPC scanning shopping list like Grocery IQ but ultimately you have to get the time to actually go to the store! There are two applications that I rely on: Google Calendars and Toodledo. I use the calendar because I can easily share a “family calendar” with my husband and this facilitates sharing a car, and making plans. It online, in our phones, there is no excuse for not knowing when swimming ends, or Joey’s birthday party starts. The real key is when you are proposing an all family underwear shopping trip, be sure to put it in the penciled-in until the Steelers are out of the play offs. I use Toodledo mostly to prompt me for recurring items, like getting to that cat hair on the duvet. It helps to know that everything does not need to be done right now!

How to you get everything in? I’d love to add a few more tools to my tool kit, because who wouldn't just want to spend more time playing with those two cuties in the picture up there.

Not a Perfect Parent

Maybe not first chair... but really cute!

I have not ordered any cod liver oil. I cannot stand the idea of giving my children cod liver oil.  I am sure there are bunches of articles that say that I should be; all of the best parents give their children cod liver oil.  The smell reminds me of a horrible roommate I had in college and I refuse to let it into my house.

I would like to think of myself as one of those greenie, crunchy, but bookish, attachment, Waldorf parents. I have always liked to research the right way to do things. I will admit it, I like being right. From the time I found out I was pregnant for the first time, I bought books, canvassed my friends and peers, did the homework, and was so sure that I was doing everything right. In the last 5 years, I have found that perfection is overrated and I simply cannot (and will not) keep up.

            Yes, I nursed my son until three.  I will likely nurse my daughter that long. I think the breastfeeding, and child led weaning is a healthy, normal and important part of childhood (not motherhood). I also realize that some people do not agree with me, and frankly I am sure that just because a baby has formula that their mother loves them any less. I know it does not make her an unworthy mother because she was unwilling to sacrifice her income, sanity, body, wardrobe, social standing, or long held beliefs.

Mother does not mean martyr, notice how the words are different?

Why Not to Hire an Architect to Build a Sandbox:Part 3

However, my poor children have no choice. The design bug bit both of their parents as young adults. My DH and I don’t always have the same taste or opinion on design (read: 3 years to paint one bathroom). However, what we agree on is a love the problem solving, imagining, making, and a hate of painting the bathroom. When we found out we were having my son, the first think I could think about was how to redecorate his room, and the kick-*ss tree house we were going to build. He was one before his room was done, but that is another post for another time.

This post is supposed to be about architects and sand boxes. This is going to tell you how we did it, but please do not take this as a How TO post if you need instructions for a simple, functional, and rational designs go here: ==>>Great Sandbox Plans <<== . As doctors make poor patients, architects make poor clients, so we both took these plans and proceeded to ignore them completely.  See the start of this project check out Part 1, and Part 2.

Here's the back story: Probably 3 years ago my husband drove by one of those traditional sandbox turtles, and garbage-picked it. It appealed to the both of us, re-used, retro, already to fill with sand and it covered the not grassy spot in the back yard perfectly. My son loved it for at least two summers!

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(You can see the outline of the new one behind there)
Then DD turned one. The turtle was not big enough for the two of them. Something had to be done immediately!

So in and effort to fit a bit more sandbox in an already cramped back yard we came up with this design. I really wish I could find the old plans for this one, yes there were plans, just be glad I didn’t draft it in 3D. It didn’t take too many weekends, used a bit of log from a tree damaged in the “2006 October Storm”. We constructed it just like our raised garden and it would have been integrated as planting space when the kiddos lost interest. I say, “would have been” because about a month after its completion we decided to put our house on the market and move. Kind of like when the city decides to pave your street the year before they decide to dig up and replace the sewer, (and those are engineers…sheesh). Fortunately, family that bought our house also has a young son, and I’d like to think that he’s enjoying it right now.

So, with moving last fall, and winter, and the rainiest spring ever it was the first week of July before we started the new and fabulous designer sandbox.
The outline on the ground was my DH idea, and since we couldn’t have just make a simple rectilinear box, in fact, we couldn’t even make it an octagon, that would have been too easy, and as I said before we needed a challenge. So, it is mostly an octagon, except when it's not, (heptagon I think). We used 2x12’s for the walls and the seat, and 4x4 for the corner and bench supports.

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Here are a few more images

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BOO-BOO!

Of course, Sunday evening just before we would have called it quits for the first weekend, we have a minor job site injury. So there was a 6-hour detour to the ER, but DD is doing much better now, and as soon as the glue’s gone, we can get back into swim lessons and back yard sprinkles. Good thing we have the sandbox to entertain everyone.

It will probably take 2400lbs of sand

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We stained it “Gettysburg Blue” I’m not sure DH really likes the color (it’s almost the same as that epic bathroom re-do that I mentioned earlier), but I bought the paint without a formal change order so there you have it.

Its blue!

The cover and sunshade (Ikea, but discontinued I believe) were in fact off the rack, but I’m sure I’ll end up hacking them up in the end. But that’s for next week’s project.

our shady spot

So in short the reason you don’t hire and architect to design your sandbox is that is they will likely go way over on time, materials and of course budget, pay no mind to site safety and in the end you’ll have a seven sided blue sandbox. 

Sun Sail over "over designed sandbox"