Martha Stewart ain't got nothing on me...(except jail)

...and her own line of shit for sale...but that isn't the point!

Like everyone else lately I am obsessed with Pinterest and all the cool things on there. You can find ideas for anything on there, and I want to try every.single.one. I'll be honest, some of them are things I want but totally intend to make C try. It's totally his fault he can build absolutely anything. I intend to use that my advantage forever. Anyways, back to pinterest. I am so not crafty. I want to be, I do, but I'm just not. I see things and I love them and think OH I'd love to make that, or I get this picture in my head of what I want, then I try to make it and it never works out. It may be a patience issue, but mostly it's just that I suck at all things crafty. Til now!

I found this awesome burlap wreath on pinterest, and thought now THIS is something I can do. I mean you can't mess this up. So I make a trip to Michael's and pick up the supplies. The wire wreath thing, two things of burlap (10 yds each I think), some wire and some ribbon to make a bow. The wreath went together in no time at all. Maybe 15 minutes total, because I didn't always like how the stuff came through the wire and I was tweaking it, but super easy. The bow was by far the hardest part for me. I can't tie a pretty regular bow to save my life. I don't have a bow maker. I watched and read 216548 tutorials online and couldn't for the life of me figure out exactly what half of them were doing, despite step by step instructions. It just didn't make any sense and my fingers weren't working like theirs were. Then I found this one, and voila! A bow! I tied it on and ended up with this, which I was more than thrilled with.

I also made Paula Deen's crunch top apple pie this weekend for my in-laws, who were super impressed with my baking skills. I was pretty proud of it too, though it wasn't my first pie rodeo. I've made this pie numerous times and everyone always talks about how good it is, but I don't eat pie, or baked apples, so I have to take their word for it. It sure looks pretty though :

I'm hoping my Martha side continues to show and I can get a few more Pinterest projects done in the next week or so. I'm all about decorating for Christmas right now, and love this time of year <3

Shit just got real for the Honeybadger....

So the honeybadger has been having some issues this school year as far as behavior goes. He's a pretty spirited child, full of energy, wit, sarcasm, and mouthiness. He's sweet as sugar when he wants to be, and cute as a button, so he thinks at times he can get by with anything. He has constant issues with being loud, and is constantly being told at home and school to be quiet, stop yelling, etc. I have no idea where this loud part comes from...I mean, it's not like I was chosen for speaking roles in our schools PTA plays based on the fact that i was just, well, good at projecting my voice :). He also has the inability to walk in the hallways. Always running. Turning circles. Walking backwards, and then into someone who has stopped. Sliding across the walls. Anything but what he's supposed to be doing. Same thing in class, up, down, up, down, not in his seat, not correctly in his seat so he falls in the floor, not keeping his hands to himself.

This has been a constant battle, and one that I want to nip in the bud now before he ends up a 3rd grader and still doing this stuff, landing him in the office everyday. I hate to see this kids' behavior report come home everyday with frowning faces on it. Frowning faces means his color chart at school has changed from green (good) to a not so good color. This week it's been red, a lot. It makes me sad, and I have no idea how to fix it. We have tried all kinds of things. It's most frustrating I think because he knows HOW to behave. He knows the rules, he knows what is right and wrong, he can tell you those things, and he can tell you what he is supposed to be doing instead. But he has ZERO self control when it matters. He even had a super good day about two weeks ago, where he got all smiles on his report, and they made him star student of the day. Made this huge deal about it, made him feel special and awesome. But the next day....back to the regularly scheduled honeybadger. I should mention this kid is usually good at home, the issues seem to be at school. He gives me lip, and attitude, but for the most part at home he's well behaved. He has some 5 year old moments, but when he's told to tighten up, he does. I don't know why he can't manage to do this at school.

Like I said we have tried all kinds of stuff (and are open to any and all suggestions). The kid loves his cartoons right before bed, we've taken those away, we've taken away the whole tv. We've stopped visits to his Papaw's house because that is his most favorite thing ever, and he tends to get away with so much there sometimes and be treated like royalty regardless. He hates having that taken away from him, but not enough to change his behavior for any length of time. We've taken all his favorite toys, made him help bag them up, and put them away, telling him he has to earn them back. He hasn't. We talk to him, tell him why we're doing what we're doing, he understands, and he says he knows he has to be good at school too, he just doesn't seem to care. This past Tuesday he had a rough day at school, and daycare in the afternoon on top of that. His sister got to go play bingo at the Moose, while him and I went home. We'd told him that until he gets his act together there would be no fun for him. That he was going to put in work for the amount of misbehaving he does, and that all things fun in his world would be gone. I took him home, fed him dinner, and then he swept, he mopped, and he washed all the dishes. "Mopping is fun mom" he said. I told him (half jokingly in my mind) that it was good he felt that way, because if he kept on acting up at school he'd clean the whole kitchen floor with a toothbrush..."can I do that now mom?" he says. *this is me pulling my hair out*.

Last night after parent/teacher conferences, and a whole week of bad behavior reports, we packed up all of his toys, and made him help. All of them. His room now consists of a bed, a dresser, and a bookshelf with books. That's all he's got. Even packing them up he didn't act all that concerned. At one point he said it made him sad, but he wasn't acting sad about it at all. Then we loaded them into the truck, and were on our way to take them to the in-laws. I meant it when I said he'd have to earn them back, and if they're not in the house, he can't get to them at all. So we load them up, we're driving, and he's chit chatting away. C and I start talking and Honeybadger gets real quiet for a while. All of a sudden he pipes up with his mad voice and loudly states that HE is playing the quiet game, and goes about pouting with his chin in his hand, propped up on the carseat arm. That's the moment that I think this stuff got real for him. I think he realized in that moment that we were 210% serious. That all of his fun was really going away. He still wasn't thrilled when we unloaded them into the in-laws basement. I hope he's unthrilled enough to get his act together. I'm at a loss as to what else to do from here if this doesn't work, short of hanging him up by his little toes. (JOKING!)

This is just a phase....this is just a phase...this is just a phase....a really long one.........or so they say. "They" also say that I should just keep telling myself this. I'm not sure at what point it goes from being just a phase, to being something else, but I hope it's over soon.

I want a frying pan cake.

The older I get the more I wish I had paid more attention to things growing up. More attention in school, more attention to my surroundings, more attention to my feelings, everything. This past week or so I'm really wishing I had paid more attention in my grandma's kitchen, especially to her cooking and canning.

I was lucky enough to grow up in the mountains of Virginia, on one of the many dirt roads in our county, about 30 minutes away from our small, one stop light town. My grandparents owned over 100 acres of land, and you could see their house from ours which was right down the road. My grandpa owned a small dairy farm, and my grandma was a stay at home wife/mother for almost her entire life. You know, that's just how it was back then. They raised cows and chickens and pigs, and there was always this huge elaborate garden. I always spent my summers at my grandparents house after I started school, and they were the ones that got us on and off the bus everyday until we could be home by ourselves. I loved it there. I'd ride my bike over and just hang out, and in the evenings after dinner (I call it dinner because you have, breakfast, lunch and dinner, my grandma always called it supper, breakfast, dinner and supper, old timers jeez...) I'd watch for my grandpa to come driving around the road to check the cows. I'd flag him down outside our house and he'd let me sit on his lap and drive. I liked to hit every hole in the road, and he'd let me even though he'd fuss at every one.

I spent lots of time in their garden, and our own, and tons of time in the kitchen of their house, but I wish my grandma had put me to more work. She'd just let me play and do whatever, graze on whatever was close, and run off when I got bored or tired of it. My grandma could make anything, without a recipe, and it was always good. Oh how I wish I'd have "learned" that. My dad mentioned the other day that she used to make this amazing sweet potato butter. It's like apple butter, but with sweet potatoes. So I went searching the internet and found a recipe. Then I had this bright idea that I'd can some. Let me just tell you, I've never canned anything in my life, despite the fact that my grandma canned EVERY THING! They had a store house FULL of canned food, and I was around for a lot of it being done, but never paid attention.

So needless to say my first batch didn't seal, but I re-made some last night, and it was a success. I was so proud of myself I've claimed that I'm going to start canning all kinds of stuff. We'll see how this works out. I'm pretty late in the game this year, but next years garden will be more put to use than this last one was I promise. I would give my right arm to be able to can green beans like my grandma, and I know they're far more work. Not that hers taste any different than other peoples.

Thinking about her last night and this morning reminded me of this amazing skillet cake she used to make. We grew up calling it a frying pan cake because that's how it's made, in a cast iron skillet, baked in the oven. She made this chocolate sauce to go over it, and right out of the oven this stuff was AMAZING. At some point I'd had her write the recipe down, and I hope my mom still has it. She tried to tell me the whole, oh, it's just a little flour and some oil, and ....... but I needed measurements! I'm on a mission this weekend to find that recipe at my moms, my kids need to experience this cake. And they need to experience some of my grandma's stuff that I experienced. My mom is nothing like her mother and does none of the stuff Granny used to do, and while my Granny is still living, she's not the Granny she once was, and can't do the things she used to do. That generation is almost gone, but I want to do my part to keep it going, pass down things like that. We can benefit from it so much and families were closer back then. Or it seems that way anyways.