Carve This.

Let's discuss pumpkin carving templates.

The only thing I want to carve, after looking at them, are my eyes.  And not into jack-o-lantern happy triangles, into death-ridden "x's". 

Who creates these? NO ONE WITH KIDS! "Yes, sweetie, let's carve Darth Vader walking a dog with a sunset in the valley of the mountains in the background. Go grab a jigsaw and 174 toothpicks. Oh! And your sister really wants to carve Elsa's silhouette with her ice castle in the background. I hope my steady hand will be able to accurately depict the intricate details of the 4,852 spindles on her ice castle staircase. Oooh! Grab another pumpkin because we must not forget to carve Sven!"

These super-sculptor douches ruin this tradition for the average. A jack-o-lantern is supposed to be three triangles for eyes and nose and a half moon for a mouth. If you feel tricky,  add a couple of rectangular teeth...ooooh, you fancy! 

Pinterest, you've over-complicated something, again, and I'm not impressed. 

Imagine the relief I felt when my little man chose a Lego face from the front if the Lego blocks. No toothpicks. No Dremel. No pixie dust and prayers needed! And he was able to do it all by himself! He is proud of it and I am proud of him for recognizing what he could tackle independently, because doing his best by himself was more important to him than a pumpkin-replica of a  "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fighting an evil warlord while eating a slice of pizza" that was worthy of  a spot on Mt. Rushmore.  Oh, presidents only on Rushmore? Ok.  Bill Clinton in the Oval Office with an intern?  At least someone was getting something done...Yikes, that's an entirely different blog post...

Oh, and my daughter's pumpkin? Olaf. With three seperate cuts for his Godforsaken-carrot-nose.  Stupid dumb snowman.  Stupid me for having Pinterest open while she was in the room!

The moral of the story is that overachieving pumpkin-carvings designed for the "carving enthusiast" make me wonder what is missing in that "enthusiast's" life that causes them to spend 4 days carving a pumpkin. Get a job. Or a family. Or, better yet, come do my laundry!

If You Are That Mom, Please Stop.

If you are the mom that makes everything crafty that shows up on the kidspiration board on Pinterest, please stop. You are making your kid rely on you to entertain them and you are making the rest of us feel guilty about checking Facebook with our kids plopped in front of the TV. 

If you are the mom that makes bento-box lunches every.single.day for your kids, your husband, and your hamster and those lunches are healthy, colorful, and turn your kid’s lunch into an effin’ art project, please stop. Your kid is probably craving stale, frozen-in-the-middle chicken nuggets that have been MICROWAVED (*gasp!*). Besides, your kid probably steals the Cheetos out of the lunch of the kid sitting next to him/her, while your 45 minute Bento-box-Mona-Lisa gets chucked out with fifth grade retainers.

If you are the mom that says “Oh, excuse the mess” after cleaning the house for HOURS like Oprah was on her way over, please stop, and come over to my house and then continue.


If you are the mom that has a toddler yet leaves your table set all the time, please stop. Your kid needs a place to color, and quite honestly, that just tells me that you use paper plates all the time. (#youknowitstrue)

If you are the mom at the playground, judging the other moms at the playground (or the mom at the computer judging the moms that make bento-box lunches) please stop. We all feel inferior from time to time. That’s not the opportunity to pounce on another’s weakness. It’s the time to reflect and appreciate all that we have that is good in our lives and to be thankful.


Hey, “that mom,” thanks for trying so hard, but promise me you’ll only do those things above if you really want to, ok? Doing them because you think you should is not a good enough reason...and your kids will sense that. I suck at crafts, I pack lunches that have way too much sugar, my house is messy, and I tend to be a tichy-bit judgemental, however, I LOVE tucking my kids into bed, and eating dinner together as a family. I’m not perfect, but I admit that and I hope I pass on my tolerance of imperfection to my children. I do what I want with and for my kids, and not what I think I *should* be doing.


My motto: Eff Perfection. Now, let me check who’s pretending to be awesome on Facebook...

Pinterest This

Ladies (and some gentleman, but not many) understand the concept of a PINTEREST FAIL. I can predict there are many ladies shaking their heads and nodding, right now.  We should probably start a support group....

Well, allow me to tell you about the worst thing I attempted from Pinterest, that sucked TIME AND CRAFTY DESIRE right out of my godforsaken limbs.  

My Pinterest Fail Entitled "Easter Egg Garland Hell": There was this awesome post about making your own easter egg garland using yarn, liquid starch, and water balloons.  You SIMPLY(!) blow the balloon up to the size you'd like the egg (or sphere) to be, then soak the yarn in this GOO of liquid starch and water, and then wrap the yarn around the balloon.  It dries hard, you pop the balloon, and VIOLA! DELICATE STRING EASTER EGGS that can be strung together and hung on the mantel above your fireplace. How JesushasRisen-ish.  

fail. Fail. FAIL! Holy shiz!!!! For starters, let me tell you about what an effing mess that made.  I trashed my kitchen because as you wrap long SOAKINGWET gooey string around the balloon, that. shit. flies. EVERYWHERE.  I mean, I'm pretty sure the dog ended up with an eye gooed shut (witty play on words, see what I did there?  gooed instead of glued? teehehehe), the ceiling of my kitchen ended up with a popcorn effect--well, at least now it matched the rest of the house, and my daughter ended up looking like Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary. Yes. And she was two at the time, so that was REALLY not a good look for her.  It was Child Protective Services worthy, but NOT A GOOD LOOK.

In addition, whointhehell has fingers small enough to reach in and pull the popped balloon out of the inside of the egg? Not me. These man-hands weren't delicate enough for that task. So, I tried a knife (ouch), tweezers (nope), a knife again (bigger ouch), and finally was successful with chop sticks.  I knew those bitches were made for something. Sadly, this was all compounded by the fact that my garland had all of this weird, scaly, starchy crap that had to be pushed out in order to look like a delicate string egg. Lame.  

Garland that should have taken me 30ish minutes, excluding drying time, took me a whole damn day, and I had to bathe the dog, and my daughter (and yes, perhaps I did throw them in the tub at the same time--which was cool until my daughter pooped.  Poor dog). 

My easter egg garland was ugly, my dog's eye was gooey, my daughter looked dirtier than a hooker in Vegas, and the only thing I had to show for all my hard work was popcorn starchy-goo ceiling in my kitchen. Damn you, Pinterest.