Why salt dough ornaments are a tease (and other Christmas happenings)

Pinterest was going overboard with all of the cute salt dough recipes and ornaments on all kinds of pages (Holiday, Kids, DIY, EVERYWHERE!)

It was so easy, the pins promised. It was so cheap, the pins promised. It was so cute, the pins promised.

Bait taken.

Cheap? Sure, when you have most of the supplies on hand.
Cute? The jury's still out.
Easy? I almost abandoned this project three times. It was almost a pinterest fail.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water

Mix all ingredients together.

Easy! Especially when Bubby is helping "cook."

Knead until a ball of dough forms. Bubby played with it for about two minutes before he got bored with dropping pieces of it onto the floor. (I must remember that he is only 15 months old, which means a two-minute attention span is actually an accomplishment.)

Save dough in container for about three days until you summon enough courage to press a toddler's foot into it.

Form two balls out of dough. Pick pieces of dog fur out of dough ball. Press flat.

Press screaming toddler's foot into flattened dough.

Repeat. Give toddler iPhone for two minutes as a thank you.

Poke holes in the top (mechanical pencils without the lead pushed out work nicely).

(There are no pictures of these processes)

Let dry.

For two weeks.

None of the sites I checked mentioned anything about taking two weeks to dry. I set them on a cooling rack. I set them on waxed paper. I flipped them over (and prayed that the footprint would be preserved). I contemplated baking them, but didn't really feel like running my oven at 175 degrees for over an hour for two piddly salt dough ornaments.

On the second day of the drying process, the footprint flattened out and I thought all was lost. However, DO NOT ABANDON HOPE! The footprint will flatten out and then the rest will flatten and you'll be okay.

I finally got around to painting them.

And the painting experience was horrible. Maybe I set my expectations too high. I'm used to painting things like canvas or paper or rocks. Things that are not highly water soluble.

I couldn't figure out why my paint wasn't sticking if I brushed over it more than twice and then I realized that the dough had become wet and softened and was getting all gummy again.

When you paint these buggers, make sure you glob on the paint and dab rather than swipe. Also, don't go over an area more than once.

It dried pretty quickly, and it's kind of a success. One definitely looks better than the other. I think they are very third-grade-holiday-craft-from-art-class-ish. But I like 'em!

String ribbon through the hole and hang on the tree. We aren't cutting a tree this year since we'll be out of town, but you can use your imagination.

We also took our family photo. I was tempted to make it all Pinterest-y, but that's not really our family. We aren't always coordinated and matchy. We aren't always smiley. Rufus jumped into and out of about six takes. Sparkles don't fly in the air around us. There is no bokeh. No cute chalkboard signs.

So this year, it's a good ol' selfie.

My favorites:

The one we are going with:

Singing in the Rain

So this is shaping up to be the last semi-warm week of the year. It was my bright idea to take a walk this afternoon despite the menacing gray clouds.

"Looks like it's going to rain," Andy said.

He's my husband, so it's my right (and in my job description) to ignore about 50% of what he says. He returns the favor, so that's why it's a good partnership.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Are you coming with me?"

It's a football day, so the answer was no. Ten minutes later, Roody poody was hooked up to his leash and Hayden was strapped into his tank stroller. Let me digress here for a moment, only because it is (semi) relevant to a later part of the story. It's only partly relevant, but it is also a chance for me to brag about Andy's creative skills, so you're hearing about it.

I have a stroller problem. Three of them to be exact. One that is the all-in-one carseat-stroller contraption for bitty, bitty babies. One is a jogging stroller for all of the, um, jogging that I do. One is an umbrella stroller I am borrowing from a friend for when we want to go somewhere but don't feel like running over dogs, small children, and adult ankles in a crowd. The carseat stroller is nice because the expandable visor thing can move. If the sun is right in front of us, I can bump the visor all the way down so the sun isn't in Hayden's eyes. On the jogging stroller, the visor is securely and permanently attached to the top back part of the stroller. I justified keeping the carseat stroller because I liked the moveable visor. Andy fixed the problem by creating the tank stroller. He took the moving visor from the carseat stroller and attached it to the jogging stroller. When the sun is super crazy, Hayden goes into tank mode. We put the carseat visor all the way down, which leaves a gap at the top. Then we put the jogging stroller top down and the entire stroller is covered by one visor or the other. It's pretty fancy, even if the visors don't match.

So, I figured that if it started to sprinkle, Hayden could go into tank mode. No biggie.

We embarked on our walk, smiling and waving at neighbors we didn't know. I got to the point in the neighborhood where I could either turn left and go around the block and head home, or I could turn right and head past the newer houses, but would have to turn around when I wanted to go home.

The heather-gray clouds looked like they would hold off on spilling their guts for another hour or two, so I turned right.

I walked a good two blocks before the rain started to splat. Not the nice, friendly tinkle-sprinkle of light rain drops. These were the ones that make noise and make you blink when they land on your face because they're kinda heavy.

"Okay," I thought to myself. "This isn't too bad. I'll just turn around at the next street corner." I put Hayden's stroller in tank mode and trucked onward.

Then the splats turned into a straight-on downpour. I was drenched in 7.6 seconds flat. Rufus was in doggie panic mode and was trying to hide under the stroller. Hayden started screaming.

At the time, I was rather foolishly wearing flip flops. I tossed those bad boys in the little carrier under the stroller and ran barefoot back toward the house. I'm pretty sure I looked like a class-A idiot mother. We were the only ones outside on a walk-that-was-now-a-frantic-run. Poor Rufus was running like a rabid dog, zig-zagging across lawns, alternately trying to hide under trees and/or the stroller. Hayden was screaming in his Frankenstein stroller.

I had that terrible feeling like I wasn't just a half-mile from my house. I may as well have been trekking through a snake-infested jungle a thousand miles from home. That is the type of desperate "Oh shit"ness I was feeling.

At one point in the journey that seemed like a hundred miles back to my house, a nice lady let me cross the street without stopping to look both ways (I did look both ways, but didn't stop because the lady waved me through). She rolled down her window and shouted what I presumed was "Are you okay?" (It was a little hard to hear over the downpour and the screaming baby). I said I was fine and plastered a rain-soaked smile on my face.

I ran barefoot the whole way home, even though part of the sidewalk at one point was gravel from the construction. I didn't even feel it. Not quite the same as lifting a car off a kid, but definitely Momma-power!

Andy met me in the garage with a stack of towels. At some point in our journey, part of the tank-mode stroller collapsed and Hayden was soaked to the bone.

We made quite the pair. I am happy to report that Hayden seems untraumatized by the incident. He may end up peeing the bed tonight, but I doubt it's from our journey today. He is officially 13 months old!

(See, no tears. A little bit of fear in the eyes, maybe.)

i am so pumped

i am so pumped i didn't even capitalize this first sentence.

Actually, I am having a terrible day so far. It included all the regulars: no clothes to wear, had to scrape the ice off my car with the lid of a plastic container, late to work, tired as all get out, and to top it all off, I have a full body scan at my dermatologist's today. So I get to get naked in front of other people so they can make sure I don't have any funny looking freckles. Whoop-freakin-eee. The joys of being a pale person.

Buuuuuut, I am excited because it's November, and I am chugging along with my NaNo novel. 17,800 words or something like that. Last year, I only got to around 23,000, so this year is going phenomenal. Shout out to Andy who, despite his complaining last night a little, has been relatively tolerant of my reclusiveness this month as I spend as many waking minutes as possible in front of his computer.

Also, Stella ran away on Halloween, but she came back at 4 in the morning. Bad dog. I still love her.

Oh, and I submitted my application for MVNU...even though I'm drop-dead poor, I'm going to school. (Yay school!)

SYOTFS