I got an email today about a greeting card website called Mushy Gushy. Normally I would have just put the link in my “bloggy to-do” folder and looked at it later, but the email mentioned that you could cut a face from a personal photograph and paste it into a free e-card.

Needless to say, I was intrigued.

Well, I checked it out – and y’all, it’s more fun! Just more fun! So much fun!

I had such a good time clicking around that I actually made a card, and even better – thanks to Mushy Gushy’s detailed photo cropping features – I was able to make my face thinner than it’s been since 1998.

(I LOST 30 POUNDS IN 5 MINUTES! THE INTERNET IS A MIRACLE! WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY!)

So go have fun. It’s an adorable website.

Edited to add: I was clicking around on the site again a little bit ago, and I ran across one word you might not want the kids to see. It’s not a horrible word or anything, but if you look under the category labeled “interactive,” you’ll see what I’m talking about – you might not care for the context. So show the young’uns at your discretion – it could still be a really fun activity for parents and kids to do together if there’s proper supervision.

It’s no secret around these parts that I’m not a very crafty person.

Perhaps this is due in large part to the fact that I don’t do crafts at all.

Ever.

And unfortunately, my child has paid the price for my failures in the craft arena. He hasn’t had lots of exposure to things like, you know, scissors – which he wields as if his right hand has been seized by an electrical current – because, well, CRAFTY THINGS MAKE MAMA NERVOUS.

Plus, I don’t know if y’all know it or not, but art is oftentimes messy.

Over the last year or so, though, I’ve had a change of heart. It’s not that I like crafts now – OH, HEAVENS NO – but I do want for Alex to enjoy coloring and painting and lo, even pasting things. I also want for him to have memories of doing crafty things outside of church or Mother’s Day Out, perhaps even in the house where he lives with the mother who is crazy.

As an added bonus, the occasional crafty activity might just help Alex learn how to “hold a pencil” and “write some words” and other skills that will come in handy when he starts school.

So I have been trying to do better.

And lately, I feel like there’s been something resembling crafty progress in our family.

For starters, I bought a big canvas at Michael’s about a month ago, and one Saturday morning I covered the breakfast room table with a sheet and a bunch of newspaper, put out about 15 different colors of craft paint, and let Alex paint to his heart’s content. He mostly used a brush, but he also used his hands, and even though there is still a substantial chunk missing from the inside of my bottom lip, I didn’t try to control the mess.

The little man had a blast, and his finished masterpiece was one of D.’s Father’s Day presents.

LOOK! A CRAFT! IN OUR HOUSE! BECAUSE WE MADE IT!

All in all, the missing chunk of lip was a small price to pay. The paint that missed the canvas came off the kitchen chairs fairly easily, though the sheet I draped across the table will never be used as a bed linen again. Unless I want to frighten my guests.

I’ve also discovered that while Alex doesn’t care for crayons, he LOVES HIM SOME MARKERS. It’s been raining here the last couple of afternoons, and just look at the results:

MORE CRAFTS! IN OUR HOUSE! BECAUSE WE MADE THEM!

I draw the pictures – sometimes labeling them with what color should go where if he says he wants to “read colors” – and Alex works his magic with the markers. Then he colors some more. And then he asks if he can color ONE MORE TIME before he goes to bed.

Internets, I believe that’s what you would call a crafty victory. For both of us.

So if you’ll excuse me, the little man and I need to head to Walmart. They have Crayola markers for eighty eight cents a pack, and we crafty types like to pick up our supplies when they’re on sale.

I’m sure you understand.

Okay. Before you look at these pictures, you need to keep a couple of things in mind.

1) The before and after aren’t going to look all that different.

and

2) The before and after aren’t going to look all that different.

Honestly, I felt like a bit of a goofball when I was uploading these pictures, because they essentially amount to LOOK, Y’ALL! I SWITCHED LAMPS!

AND CLEANED!

But since the ($10!) desk and the two ($3.88 each!) end tables need a little refurbishing, they’re not in these pictures (and wouldn’t be even if they were finished – because I’m going to use them in other parts of the house).

So what this post basically amounts to is that I tidied up my living room – which certainly needed to be done – and I worked in some of my thrift store/estate sale accessories. I do think that the thrift store lamps make a big difference, mainly because we have big furniture, and the scale of the old, big lamps works better than the lamps I was using before.

I’m afraid that the “before” pictures may be enough to keep Mama out of church for three Sundays straight, because how will she ever explain to her friends why her daughter’s coffee table was in such disarray? And that there were pictures of the cluttered coffee table ON THE INTERNET?

It’s a good thing I didn’t take pictures of all the old, dusty candy I found underneath one of the couches. Because I’m afraid that would’ve sent Mama straight to the emergency room.

One woman can only bear so much shame.

(sidenote: I’m very nervous about this whole thing, to the point that I would like to distract you from the underwhelming spectacle you’re about to see. As a result, I am fighting a seemingly irrepressible desire to tap dance. In a sparkly costume. While twirling fire batons. Because that would most certainly make you forget about all of this before and after business.)

Oh, never mind.

Here’s what I was up against when I started this process.

This is kind of an overview of the room – and I know it’s hard to see what’s going on because the sun was bright and I couldn’t get the camera settings changed and I AM NOT ANNIE LEIBOVITZ, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

But if you look really carefully, you’ll see two smallish lamps over to the left-hand side of the picture. They look ridiculous given the size of the room, but they’re what I had when we moved in, and I’m a make-do kind of girl.

Here’s D.’s chair and one of the areas I was hoping to re-vamp with my thrift store finds.

I had resorted to using a plant stand as an end table, and the light from the lamp was at horrible angle. The phrase “uncomfortable glare” comes to mind.

And don’t ask me why I have the throw on the ottoman pulled up halfway. Because I have no idea. I can only assume that at some point I had to retrieve a ball or search for a remote or rescue a small action figure.

The next area I wanted to work on was our coffee table, which was what one might refer to as a hot mess.

And I’m sure you’ll agree that there are few things in life as klassy as a large wooden bowl filled with six or forty-two remotes.

Finally, I felt like the end table next to the beige sofa needed something bigger to anchor it. The lamp was too small, and all the accessories were even smaller.

So those were the problem areas.

I contemplated trying to rearrange the room for about four seconds, but I become a woman obsessed when I start moving furniture. I wanted to actually finish whatever projects I started yesterday – as opposed to piling all the furniture in the center of the living room and then collapsing in a corner, wailing about how NOTHING IS DONE! NOTHING IS DONE! EVERYTHING IS A WRECK! while D. looked on in horror.

Anyway.

Here’s the finished product.

I mean, if nothing else, neat helps. You know?

Perhaps I have learned a valuable lesson.

And this is the first “target area” – by D.’s chair.

The round table is from the estate sale, and the lamp (only $9.88! with shade!) and piece of green glass came from the thrift store. I really do love how the table fills up that spot, and the lamp is a great punch of color against the wall of windows.

Even better:

A drawer for the remotes!

Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

Next, I tackled the coffee table.

I got the brass planter from the estate sale and the green candy jar from the thrift store. Everything else was mine – just re-purposed a bit.

And then the other end table, previously known as Where The Small Things Are:

The oh-so-60’s lamp came from the thrift store (another $9.88 find), and the Partridge Family metal tree (that’s actually Hallmark circa 2002) came from the estate sale. I feel like the table can now hold its own next to the big ole beige sofa. And the metal thingy actually has the color of my walls in the leaves, which was an unexpected bonus.

And I have to say: I feel so much better about the whole room now. D. remarked this morning that he really likes it, and trust me when I tell you that is a huge deal – because normally his only decorative observation involves whether or not he has an unobstructed view of the television.

I didn’t spend a lot of money – maybe $60 total – and best of all, I have a room that’s finished, comfortable, and a little bit eclectic. This room is totally “us” – a reflection of our family’s personality – and for the first time since we moved in December, our living room feels like home.

And that, oh internets, is priceless.

So this looks fun, right?

I mean, just look at the gamepieces inside the box:

They’re all “dude!” and “cool!” and “super fun!,” and we know this just by looking at their body language. Arms stretched out, eyes wide open, smiles aplenty – these crazy kids are pumped as can be about the exciting possibilities before them.

After all, they do get to spend their days here:

But let me tell you something that I know for sure: if one of those happy little gamepieces happened to be a parent who was trying to explain this game to his or her child for the first time, those facial expressions would be markedly different. And the body language would be a bit more, um, pinched.

Because if you’re looking at the picture of the gameboard and thinking about all the fun you and your favorite preschooler would have the first time you climbed up those ladders and slid down those chutes, I would just like to say that YOU COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG, MY FRIEND.

No kidding, y’all. I nearly lost my mind playing this game with A. last night.

You see, here’s the thing: if a preschooler sees a spinner land on the number 5 and then looks at a gameboard that’s covered with (useless) numbers, he might just think that he’s supposed to look for the next (useless) number with a 5 in it instead of moving ahead 5 spaces because that is the way a preschooler’s mind has to work when he plays Candyland, and then you will spend four or thirty six minutes trying to explain through gritted teeth that this game isn’t like Candyland, that you’re supposed to be right here, baby, right here on block number 42, and I know there’s not a 5 in there, baby, but I promise it’s right, I promise, because you’re supposed to count ahead five spaces from where you were, not just look for the next (useless) number with a 5 in it, so you need to just movethegamepieceplease. Baby.

(By the way, if the previous paragraph is confusing to you, then I would just like to say, “MY POINT EXACTLY.”)

It could be that the numbers on the squares are supposed to encourage arithmetic skills, but the encouragement loses some of its impact since the game is for, you know, preschoolers. Granted, A. does know all of his numbers, but we haven’t so much gotten started with addition and subtraction when anything larger than 10 is involved, so if I say, “Hey, you’re on square 27. You’re supposed to move ahead 5 spaces. What square should you land on?,” his answer is going to be “CHEETOS! I WANT SOME CHEETOS!” or “I WANT TO GO UP THE BLUE LADDER, MAMA!” without “32” ever darkening the door of his sweet little mind.

I’m trying to tell myself that last night was like “Chutes and Ladders” bootcamp for D. and me. It was training. It was tough and rigorous and taxing, but like anything else, it’ll get easier with practice. I really want to believe that, because A. had an absolute blast moving all the wrong places at all the wrong times. And I know that we should focus on the game-playing journey, not the top-o-the-ladder destination.

But this game gets on my nerves, y’all.

Mainly because I never thought I’d have to die to self while playing a board game designed for preschoolers aged three and up.

But now that I’ve vented, I’m going to fight the good fight and head back into the playroom. Chutes and Ladders will not steal my joy.

Just consider yourselves warned: y’all may have to pray some Scripture over me before the day is over.

And also, I’m not playing Candyland next and you can’t make me.

Yesterday afternoon D. decided that he was going to do a little weeding in our flower beds.

Since he’d spent the morning edging the driveway, cleaning off the deck, transferring pinestraw from one place to another, and basically taking care of all the outside chores that I do my very best to ignore, I fully supported his decision to continue with his alarming level of productivity and get after those pesky weeds.

He started with a small bed of azaleas that’s in the center of our backyard, and about five minutes into the weeding, he came face-to-face with a pile of yellow jackets.

I don’t think “pile” is the scientific term, by the way.

I believe the scientific term is, in fact, “posse.”

And one of the members of the yellow jacket posse? Officially a hater.

Because he stung D. right on the bridge of his nose.

When D. came inside I offered to do what my grandmother always did, which was to soak a cotton ball in Clorox and rub it all over the affected area. But the more I thought about it, the more confident I was that placing Clorox so close to the eye area was probably not one of my better home-remedy ideas. So we decided we’d run to the store and pick up some Benadryl.

And I’m certainly not saying that the swelling was immediately noticeable, but when D. went in Publix to get the medicine, a total stranger pointed at him, then gestured to the Benadryl box and said, “LOOKS LIKE YOU NEED TO GO AHEAD AND TAKE SOME OF THAT!”

Really, I can’t imagine anything quite as fun as being singled out in a public setting for an unexpected bout of facial swelling. And I have no idea why that person reacted like she did. I mean, other than the right side of his face being twice the size of the left side of his face, D. looked COMPLETELY normal.

We thought the swelling might subside a little bit overnight, but we were wrong. In fact, when D. woke up this morning, the large patch of puffiness that was spanning the center of his face had an extra-special allergic addition: a right eye that was swollen completely shut.

Which means that he’s essentially been winking at me all day long.

And trust me, girls: you have not been wooed until you have been unintentionally winked at by a man who’s experiencing an abnormal amount of facial swelling thanks to one lone hater in a posse of killer yellow jackets.

Oh, it’s a tender memory that I will carry in my heart forever.

However, D. is encouraged by the fact that since half of his vision is gone due to the fact that HE CAN’T OPEN HIS RIGHT EYE, his hearing seems to have improved at least twenty percent.

So see? That totally takes the sting out of the whole ordeal.

After five days of visiting his grandparents, the boy is home.

And I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing the words, “Mama, I missed you ALL DAY LONG.”

I’d write more, but I’m too busy catching up on hugs.