Master Bedroom Makeover: Almost Everything Else

Long long ago, I started a series of posts about my master bedroom makeover.  This is part 2 of that series, and I'm just going to throw most of the rest of the room up here as time has shown that I will probably never get back to this topic.  I will post pictures of the entire room sometime in the next 12 months, once it is free of the construction supplies I'm using on an adjoining room.  (There are just too many other fun projects in my house, and it turns out that I would rather work on them than write about them.)

Here is the "before" picture of the master bedroom:

Okay, fine.  Here is the predominant "before" picture, which will either make you feel good about yourself for being normal (don't tell me your room has never become the dumping ground of the house), or feel really good about yourself for never having such a mess:

First dramatic change:  Goodbye white walls and pink carpet.  Tip: It's always faster and way more fun to sucker your unwitting friends into helping you than to paint alone.

In an effort to be friendly to the environment, I decided to re-purpose as many elements of the room as possible.  Actually, that's not completely true.  My real motivation was to re-do this room "on the cheap".  I had given myself a $200-ish budget, which I blew pretty quickly on the carpet.  The original plan was to paint the sub-floor white and buy carpet down the road.  But once we tore up the carpet, the echo was awful,  so we bought new carpet and scrimped on other things for several months.  I also received an anonymous gift of cash, which gave me the courage to get this project under way.  (Thank you generous person!)  And just look at all the almost-free updates we made.

My meditation space:

We have a little alcove in the room that I've always wanted to use for morning scripture study, yoga, and meditation.  That's tricky when you're married to a non-early riser who doesn't enjoy the sunrise.  Here is what I started with:

And here are the improvements:

My neighbors might recognize that wood.  It came from a house kitty-corner from ours where they replaced their worn-out cedar fencing with a much more interesting fence.  I saved their old fencing from the dump and made it much more interesting, too.  After cleaning it with a stiff brush and spraying with bleach to kill any mold in the wood, I gave some of the pieces a blue color wash, sanded the peaks off the wood grain, finished with a clear coat of polycrylic, and voila...a new floor.

Please excuse the saw and paint cans.  Like I said, there are always other projects under way.

To meet my desires for natural morning light without infringing on Kent's sleep, I moved the curtains away from the window to the front of the alcove.  I replace the brown microfiber curtains with blue insulating curtains paired with Ikea's panel curtains, which are cut to the correct length.

Gotta' say, I think Ikea's curtain track system is brilliant!  The triple track lets me layer the curtains in multiple ways depending on my mood.

I wanted to bring in some natural elements, so I re-purposed this branch that I had pruned off my locust tree in the winter.  It is suspended about nine inches from the ceiling using clear nylon string anchored by white finishing nails.  I hung some sweet little wooden bird cut outs from the branches, and this easy piece of art was done.


The finished alcove:

Well, almost finished.  I'm still deciding if I want furniture in here, or just a yoga mat.  It would be nice to keep the bookcase for my gardening magazines.  I may put it on wheels so I can move it to the window and use the top surface to hold seed sprouting trays in the spring.  I'll probably add artwork to the wall too.

The dressers you've already seen on my Part 1 post, so I'll skip ahead to the real work: the bed.

We got rid of the bookcases that used to look like sentinels in the alcove, so I was looking for ways to bring storage space to the new room.  When I saw these kitchen cabinets on the curb near my kids' school with a sign advertising a good price--FREE--I knew just what to do.

All they needed was some cleaning, wood putty, sanding, priming, painting, new hardware, and they make a great headboard.  Oh yeah, throw on a recycled bi-fold closet door, a big piece of mdf covered in linen fabric (curtains from Ikea that I cut to fit), and moulding to trim the piece.  Sound simple enough?  It wasn't!

After glue sticks, staple guns are a girl's best friend.

It was so much cheaper to cut up curtains than to buy a bolt of fabric.

I needed a bed base, so I put my neighbor's old fence, and another neighbor's rotted porch post (more on that below) to use.

The bed frame is cedar fence posts stacked two high and braced with 2x4s.  We had to sink our 1/4 x 6" wood screws into the wood for a flat surface where the bed's foundation would rest, so we used a half-inch drill bit for the head of the screw and the 1/4" bit for the hole going through both posts.

   

You can see how rough/rotted the post ends were, but that unsightliness is easily hidden by craft wood used as trim.  We have a Select Comfort bed, which has a plastic foundation rather than a traditional box spring.  To get a clean look without a dust ruffle covering up the wooden bed frame, Kent and I ran more of the linen curtain fabric around the three sides of the bed foundation that show.  We used some highly specialized parts to attach the fabric to the plastic: adhesive Velcro with safety pins on the corners.  It's not perfect, but no one looks closely at the bed foundation anyway.

I really wanted curtains around the bed.  When the ceiling fan prevented me from building posts at the corners, I came up with something else.  I noticed that some other neighbors had replaced their porch posts, and better yet, I noticed their rotted porch posts leaning against their house.  They gave me six posts, and I went to work.

After much cleaning, sanding, cutting, puttying, and painting, I had some rails to hold the curtain tracks.  Here's how they turned out.

It took a few weeks of deliberating to figure out how to attach these posts to the ceiling.  I found these awesome drywall anchors at Lowe's.  They each can hold over 200 lbs.  We sunk holes in the posts in the same way we attached long screws in the bed base, adding a metal washer to catch the head of the anchor bolt.  Once the posts were up, I painted some stickers and just covered up the holes.

I bought craft boards and cut them to work as trim to hide the joints of the posts.

I attached a single track curtain system from Ikea.  (Again, I have to say I love this curtain system.)

I got the "curtains" from Ikea, too.  They are the $4 twin-size white sheets.  When I opened the package, serendipity revealed that Ikea hems the entire perimeter with a half-inch seam, so I didn't even have to pick out the top cuff that is usually on sheets.  I know...messy bed in the photo; but I couldn't reveal the made bed until I tell you about the bedding.  And this picture gives a feel for the "tent" that the kids like to play in by drawing curtain all around.  It's quite fun.

By this point of the project, I was pretty picky about what bed linens I wanted.  I bought white Egyptian sheets when they were on sale at ShopKo.  (By the way, every time I go into ShopKo, I am pleasantly surprised at their prices and the quality on most home goods, and I find myself wondering why I don't go there more often.  Last week I went in for some packing tape and left with over $100 of storage containers, baskets, and more to organize my home.)

I really wanted a white goose down comforter, but I wasn't willing to fork over half of my original budget just for that item.  Luckily, DI (the local thrift store) saved me:

Take a look at that price tag!!!  I nabbed the comforter right as another lady was headed toward it.  The ugly olive green-and-purple quilt hanging next to this goose-down comforter was marked at $75, so I wasn't sure I would actually get this for $12--but you can see that I did!  The comforter smelled a bit like a hospital, and it looked brand new, so I'm guessing some elderly patient may have died under it.  But with a $3 wash in the oversized machine at the local laundromat, it worked out to be a great deal.  (Yes, I read up on how to wash down.  Do a Google search before you throw your comforter in your own washing machine, because feathers get special treatment.)  I had found a furry white blanket at TJ Maxx, and a shower curtain (now) velvety throw at Bed Bath and Beyond, which both added textural interest to the bedding.

The final pieces were the pillows.  After finding a $7 body pillow at Target, I was convinced that I should just make my own cases.  Following instructions that I found on the internet for sewing French seams, I made two standard pillow cases and one large case for the body pillow.  I purchased most of the material, but was able to incorporate some grosgrain ribbon that had tied a pack of two throw pillows together.

I wanted one more decorative pillow and ended up making a button-up case for a $17 Ikea down pillow.  The pillow is reversible so my bedding can change with my mood: sweet with a bird, or more adult damask.  I was hoping to get a little bird embroidered on the throw pillow, but when I couldn't figure out how to do that inexpensively, I just painted a design on the off-white fabric using acrylic paints.

The bed came together quite nicely, if you ask me.

That's it for now.  Next time I'll show photos of all the free furniture I rescued from going to the thrift store and give an idea of how the eclectic pieces all work together.  Yes, I really was able to incorporate a tuba, a retro record player, a striped rug, a broken painting, a treasure chest, and dried allium all in one room.  So check back...I hope to have it posted by Halloween!

Young Hearts

Kids these days--at least my kids--spend a lot of time thinking about Valentines, meaning a person they can call their Valentine.  In my school days there was never much pressure to find a person to be one's Valentine.  Crushes were publicized throughout the school year, and on February 14 we just passed around cards and candy to our classmates and enjoyed the haul.  I do remember in seventh grade having a boy that gave me a pretty necklace, and all I felt was guilty because I didn't even really "like" him like that.

#3, my fifth grader, experienced a little of that same guilt this Valentine's Day when she found a gift with a note left secretly in her back pack.  The note was from a boy in her class and read, "Dear [#3], I think you're cool.  From, [said boy]."  It came with a small, heart-shaped box of chocolates.  Of course, #3 was surprised and flattered, but she was grateful that the boy had not outright asked her to be his Valentine, because she would have had to turn him down and then live with the guilt of eating the chocolates from a boy whom she didn't "like" like that.  As it was, I reminded her how much courage it takes for a boy to put himself out there, and she thanked him at school the next day and said his gift had made her day.

#1, in ninth grade, is learning how nice life is without all the confusion of crushes.  Her friends at her old school are in the midst of drama as the boys seek for loyalty from their bros while also trying to follow their hearts after emotional girls.  The rumors and texts have been flying!  Fortunately, #1, being somewhat removed by attending a different school this year, can see the ridiculousness from her outside observance.  I intercepted one text in which she explained to a friend at her old school that "The fools get caught up in it while they should just be laughing at the silliness."  Of course, that's not to say she doesn't have a crush.  In high school, though, I guess you don't ask someone to be your Valentine for the day, so no gifts were exchanged except for the white "friend" carnation she received from her little sister through the school's flower fund raiser.

Speaking of #2, this Valentine's Day was pretty uneventful for her.  Before I know it, though, she'll be 16 and asking a boy to the Sweetheart's Dance.  That's still four years away, which might be enough time for said boy to learn to keep up with her on the dance floor.  Check out her samba at the Provo High School Dancesport Competition last month.  She and her dance partner placed first in their division after three rounds of eliminations!

#4, in third grade, is too young to care about being someone's Valentine.  That, or she is just patiently waiting for her crush to come around and realize what a great girl she is.  (She takes after her mother.)  The highlight of her Valentine's Day was the "Alice in Wonderland" party that the third grade celebrated after finishing the book recently.  Everyone dressed up as a character, the prevalent costume being Alice.  #4 and her friends giggled every time I referred to them collectively as Alice all the way home from school.

#5, apparently is not too young to care about having a Valentine.  Fortunately, he's young enough to not be embarrassed by his mom shaking her booty for The Chicken Dance.  Yes, I was the lucky girl who got every dance with him at his first-grade party.  I taught him dance position during a waltz, and once I let him know that the boy was supposed to do the leading, he was dragging me all over the dance floor!  While at the school, I also discovered his recent love interest: the new vending machine.  When he wasn't tearing up the dance floor or counteracting the sugary treats with vegetables from the deli tray (he claims cherry tomatoes pulled him out of sugar shock), he was ogling over the mechanics of the vending machine and figuring out exactly how it works.  That's not to say he doesn't have love in his life.  While packing his Valentine cards for school in the morning, he realized he had some extras and cooly asked if he could take one to "E", his best girl friend who lives in our neighborhood.  He added, "I've given her a Valentine every year, and it would make her feel bad if I didn't bring her one this year."  Of course I said it was fine, and after school I found a store-bought, school-type card attached to a handwritten note.  I am kicking myself for not reading the note right then, because he walked it over while I was gone later that afternoon.  #2's account of the story is that #5 left to deliver the Valentine card and returned home crying!  He had big tears rolling down his cheeks.  Concerned, #2 asked what was wrong.  "Oh, I'm not sad," he replied.  "These are tears of happiness because [E] said she would be my Valentine again!"

Aww, young hearts in love!

The 70% Cure for the Hiccups

When I was in college, there was a guy in my apartment complex who collected cures for the hiccups.  He had undergone brain surgery a few years earlier, and when he awoke from the anesthesia, he had a semi-permanent case of the hiccups.  They would come and go several times per day.  It became a topic of conversation for him, so he decided to collect antidotes and write a book.  I don't know if he ever wrote that book, but it did get me thinking seriously about a cure.  Not seriously enough that I would go into medicine, but I would like to say that my research can now benefit mankind.

Somewhere along the way, I heard that hiccups are caused by the diaphragm getting off its regular pattern.  I figured the cure needed to act as a reset for the diaphragm.  So I came up with a cure that combined my technique for holding my breath in the pool--I never was coordinated enough to take a breath while still propelling my arms, so I figured out how to hold my breath all the way across the pool--and pretending to be a balloon with a slow leak.  Before you get too excited, I will say that this cure is effective only about 70% of the time.  Repeating the process can increase its effectiveness, but I have had stubborn cases of the hiccups once or twice that simply had to be waited out.

Still, now that I've tested this remedy on first graders, I think it is time to share it with the world!

Step 1:  Take three very deep breaths, filling your lungs and belly.
Step 2:  On the third deep breath, hold your breath.
Step 3:  Keep holding your breath!  You should feel like your lungs are going to explode.
Step 4:  When your face is turning red, your eyes are bugging out, and you fear drowning...oh wait, that's right, we're hiccupping, not swimming...
Step 5:  ...open your mouth ever so slightly and let the high-pressure air out as slowly as possible, as if you are one of the front two tires on my van.  (Have I mentioned that I've had two flat tires in the last four months?  No?  Well here are some photos so you can feel bad for us.)

On our way to see the Real soccer game. The kids had to substitute a game of Battleship for soccer that night.

This was at about the point that we realized our spare, which we've never before used in nine years of owning this van, was also flat.





At least it was nice weather for getting a tan on the side of the freeway. #5 was lucky to have caught a ride to the game with some friends.

Distraction can enhance the effectiveness of the hiccups cure too!

Let me know if this process works to eradicate your hiccups, or feel free to pass along your own cure.

Beware the Affections and Confections of Mrs. White!

One of my favorite days of the week is Monday, because I get to volunteer in the classrooms of my three youngest children.  I like getting to know the students and faculty, and have found over the years that as I spend time with my kids' classmates, they students grow into young adults who can talk easily with me, too.

Every once in a while, I feel like I do something truly influential for a student.  For example, as I was reading with individual students from #5's class a couple months ago, one little Latina pointed out her completed wish list assignment that was displayed in the hallway a midst all the other wish lists on the wall.  I noticed that she wished she could someday be a teacher, and then she turned to me and added, "Yeah, but I can never be that."  I returned a perplexed look and said, "Why not?  You can be anything you want to be."  "I can?"  "Of course!  If you'll work hard and be a good student, you can be a teacher or anything else."  Her eyes absolutely lit up and she grinned from ear-to-ear!

I don't know if that moment of awakening will stick with her through 18 more years, but last week I did change a child's entire life, I think.  I was quizzing more first graders on their phonograms, and another little girl was having a fit of hiccups.  It was funny to both of us as she tried to make phonemic sounds around the staccato, guttural breaths.  So we took a break and I showed her how to eliminate the hiccups.  Then we resumed for another four or five minutes.  When she had finished the list, I asked, "Where did your hiccups go?"  She smiled in acknowledgement that they were gone, at which I said, "Now, if your mom or dad asks what you learned at school today, you don't have to say that you learned a new boring reading word or something.  You can tell them you know the cure for the hiccups!"  One more life changed forever.

You may be asking yourself, "So, what's with the title of this post?"  That is I haven't yet revealed to you my influence over #3's fifth-grade class.

My volunteer time with the fifth grade is spent reading a novel out loud while the students follow along in their own copies.  This is not a thankless job.  In fact, my favorite part of every Monday is when I stop reading, close the book, and tell the students that's all for today.  This causes them to all moan in unison and say, "Just a few more pages!" to which I respond that I wish I could, but I will see them next week.  I usually arrive while they are wrapping up their lunch, and it's super fun to have them file in, see me, and rush to get their books opened and explain to me any parts of the story I might have missed if their teacher read more of the book between Mondays.

Our current novel is The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull.  I can always tell a favorite of the kids' because they complain more insistently when we close the book for the day.  This book has drawn the most complaints so far this year!  I highly recommend it for tweens.

If you're not familiar with the story, there is a character named Mrs. White who owns The Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe...along with ulterior motives.  While her candy that makes children weightless or literally electrifying is fun at first, the children soon find they are in a war of magicians who are seeking a powerful treasure.  Mrs. White's most famous--because it is also the most addictive--confection is her white fudge.  It dulls the mind and distracts the senses of all who eat it (the adults of the town) while also making them crave more of it constantly.

Well, this book set things up too perfectly for me!  With the teacher's permission, and some serendipity through my friend, Pam, who had too much fudge on her hands this weekend, I showed up to class yesterday with a candy box  filled with fudge, which I had sprinkled with powdered sugar.  I offered it to the students, "For those who dare to eat it."  I explained that it was mostly chocolate fudge so they wouldn't be too dumbed down.  Of course everyone cheered to be receiving come curriculum-related candy in school.  (The school's wellness policy doesn't usually allow sweet treats.)  Of course, my caveat was ignored, and everyone took a piece, though I did notice one girl who gingerly placed her fudge at the top of her desk to wait for her classmates to test it first.

Halfway through the reading, I came to a sentence where one of the characters was warning another child to beware of Mrs. White and her dangerous candy.  At that moment, a girl in the front row dropped her book to her desk and snapped her head toward me, gawking with wide eyes and open mouth.  Then she turned to the boy next to her and pointed at my daughter across the room, whispering, "She is [#3's] mom!"  She had just figured out that I am Mrs. White!  That whispered moment of recognition for what I had just perpetrated was great!

After my 30 minutes were up, and the children blessed my ears with their complaints and whines for more reading, I stood up to leave.  "Did you like the fudge?" I asked.  "Yes!"  Their teacher chimed in, "I bet you'll all be really mellow for the rest of the day, right?"  As I left, a boy in the back row said, "That fudge was so good!  Can we have more?"  "I'm glad you liked it," I answered.  And then I added, smiling wickedly and mischievously rubbing my palms together, "It's addictive, isn't it?"  Mwa ha ha!

From the Pens of Babes

It's not just the mouth of babes that says funny things.  Once these kids get writing, they are quite entertaining.  (BTW, click on the pictures to enlarge them if you want to see the details.)

Last night, #4 came across a Valentine booklet that her classmates made last year in second grade.  Each child wrote a page for all the other classmates, and the teacher bound them into booklets.  Just for kicks, here are some of our favorite messages of love to our sweet #4.  I am leaving the second-grade spelling and grammar as is, because it's more fun that way!

Dear [#4], want to have another play date sometime.  Yes____  no____  Love, Madeline
     You gotta' love the classic Yes and No waiting for a checkmark.

Dear [#4], I like you in my class.  You are the best.  You have a great math folder and math teacher.  I will be out of school.  So I will be out of school.  You go to a great church.  You live in a great house.  Love, Eduard.
     For the record, Eduard has the best handwriting in the book.

Dear [#4], I love your voise, hair, eys, and lips.  From, todd.
     This one makes #4 giggle every time we read it!

Dear [#4], I love your hair.  I'm very glad that you are in my class.  from, Amanda
     Second graders must not be very picky about hair, because #4 only brushed it 50% of the time last year, yet everyone seems to love it.  In Kindergarten, Eduard used to love #4's long braid, so she asked me to braid it frequently that year just to make him happy.

Dear. [#4] you look good.  from. Jacob
     #4 didn't giggle at this one until I started reading it with great emphasis on "goo--ood"!

Dear [#4], I like you because you have the same initials as George Washington.  Sincerely, Autumn #13
     There is much I love about this note!  Besides the obvious, the compliment is funnier to me because Autumn #13's dad is English; that she would tie her favorite thing about #4 to George Washington who beat the Redcoats just strikes me as funny.  And the fact that she identifies herself as #13, her line-up number, cracks me up.  (Or maybe she watched a lot of House.)

Dear [#4].  I like your hair.  You are nice.  You are cute.  Love, Grace
     I guess hair is a really important feature to eight-year-olds.

Dear [#4] I think you are the nicest kid in the class.  I like how you collect a lot of stuff.  love, Maddie
     Well I don't like how she collects a lot of stuff!  Though I am glad for the sake of the reappearance of this Valentine booklet that she kept reams of homework and other papers from last school year.

Dear [#4], you are nice  love, Cam
     Don't worry, we razzed her about the underline of "love" from Cam.  More giggles!

Dear [#4], I like that your after me in line.  from, Brandon
     Does this kid have the beginning of a superiority complex?

Dear [#4]  I love your hair and I also like how you dress.  From Whitney  to [#4]
     Again with the hair.  Even funnier is the fact that #4's school enforces a uniform policy, so all the kids dress the same!  At least Whitney likes the uniform.

Dear, [#4]  I like you long hair  From, cole
     That makes five!

Dear [#4]  I like your last name.  thank you for being a good freind and pal love, lucy
     I like her last name too.  It shares an initial with George Washington.

Dear [#4] I like you I like your Belt It cut.  Love Michelle
     More support for the uniform policy.  These kids are brainwashed!

And my favorite...

Dear [#4]  I was just kiding About your bur p's their tromendis they go BuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurP
     (Not #4's favorite compliment.)

#4's classmates aren't the only prodigious authors on the topic of love.  #5 enjoys practicing his relatively new writing skills as well.  Recently, I found this red-dry-erase-marker message scrawled on my bathroom mirror:

In case you can't decipher it, here's what it says:

 Mom and dad

               Mom + Dad
          ♥           ♥                                    kis on the [sketch of lips] evry day                 
          ♥       eechther
          ♥
          ♥        bi
                 [#5]   ♥
                               812-07-P5

At least the kid is secure in his parents' love for each other, even if he is tending toward graffiti.  It makes me a little nervous that he tried to write our phone number at the end.  What is that for?  "For a gross time watching my parents kiss, call 812-07P5"?  That's so junior high!

Sorry for all the lovey dovey stuff in this post.  I'll end with #5's recent composition.

After a year of listening to him beg for piano lessons, I started teaching him at the beginning of this school year.  Unlike my other children, whose enthusiasm faded after two months and devolved into the normal moaning and groaning of piano practicing, #5 can't get enough of the piano.  Every Monday, he rushes through the door and asks if we can please start his lesson NOW!  We recently watched a six-year-old piano genius on Ellen, and I mentioned that the boy reminds me of Mozart, who started composing at about that age.  After I explained to #5 what composing is, he made a beeline to the piano and began putting together his master works.  I told him he could earn a piano star (ten stars equals a prize) if he wrote a song.  At his next lesson, here is what was written in his notebook:

In case you can't see the double bar lines at the end of his lines of letters, those indicate the seven songs he composed, beginning with his rendition of "Pop! Goes the Weasel".  He had counted his existing three stars, and filled in enough compositions to get a prize.  I told him the songs generally needed to be longer, so he quickly added some repeat signs and played through them all for me.

I dutifully presented Little Mr. Loophole, who takes after his sister, with seven stars.  I then gave him some manuscript paper and a quick lesson in writing notes, clef signs, and time signatures.  I don't want to squelch his interest in composing, but he's going to have to show me the real thing next time he wants a plethora of stickers in his notebook.  

The bonus to his seven stars, which he was quick to ask about, is that he also earned three more stars for passing off songs during his lesson, which means he now holds the record--ten--of all my students for the greatest number of stars earned in one lesson...and he hasn't let us forget about it!  He challenges his sisters so frequently to break his record that I wouldn't be surprised if we see the gauntlet thrown down on their bathroom mirror in the near future!

Parenthood is Messy

My cousin-in-law posted this on her Facebook page today:

"Um, pleased to announce Owen [age 2], Grant [age 2 mo.s], and I performed a circus act at the grocery store today! With toy balls flying left and right down isles, while waving and yelling hi & chatting with every person we saw - courtesy of Owen, I then proceeded to knock over an entire Thanksgiving display with the cart and boxes went flying everywhere. We then somehow spilled the bag of grapes at checkout stepping on half of them while paying. Ran into a cement post on our way out... And realized we got charged for something we never got, all to make a second trip back into the store... Getting home to realize we really did get that thing I thought we never got. Hm. Some days I wonder...... ;)"

In the comments, I officially welcomed her from the stage of being a cute mom to being the frenzied, publicly humiliated mom that most experienced mothers become sooner or later.  If I didn't reach that point earlier, I certainly reached it when #4 was an infant.  Halfway through my shopping list, and with a very full cart, #4 began wailing in Wal-Mart.  She wouldn't calm down for anything, so I went to the ladies' changing rooms to nurse her.  There I encountered an attendant who told me the changing rooms weren't for nursing mothers.  The baby's crying underscored the tears I could feel coming, which softened the attendant's heart and she finally offered me a room at the inn, I mean stall...I mean a stall in the store.  When I lifted the babe out of her carrier, we all discovered that she had blown out her diaper with the signature mustard yellow squishiness of newborns.  It was up to her neck!  I was so desperate to get her calmed down that I just wrapped the messy baby in her blanket, disappeared into the changing room, and nursed her anyway.  When she was calm, I wiped her clean as best I could and headed home.  The silver lining is that I at least didn't have #s 1 through 3 also with me.  That would have put me over the edge!

Do you have any frantic or funny stories with your young ones in public?  Share them!

A Crisis of My Political Faith?

All my adult life I have considered myself socially conservative and labeled myself a Republican.  Listening to conservative pundits, I occasionally would disagree with their spin.  I did become disappointed with the ineffectiveness of national Republican administrations and congresses, but I've read the platform of the Utah Republican Party several times and have taken issue with no part of it.

I'm starting to think, though, that the labels I happily accepted do not mean what I think they mean.

This week, I completed an online survey at YourMorals.org.  The surveys they offer are conducted by social psychologists at three universities.  Their research looks at why people disagree about what is right, and how that translates into social and political values.  I took the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which gave a broad overview of my morals.  The results surprised me.

At the end of the survey, the site gave a bar graph showing my results ranked against the average results of self-described liberals and conservatives.  In only two out of nine rankings did I come close to the conservative morals.  Two of the bar graphs put my values in line with Libertarians.  The other five bars were either in between conservative and liberal results, or well beneath both.  

 

 

These results piqued my curiosity, and I wondered if perhaps a political party other than the big two would reflect my political values more.  So I read up on Libertarians, since my Liberty and Property scores seemed to be in line with them.  I like some of their ideals, but I don't believe their ideals can be realistically applied to society.  I'm not Libertarian.  The Green Party doesn't fit me well either.  (Although, I am giving ear to a friend of mine who says that greed too easily overwhelms our stewardship for the environment and animals.  Can I give up my desire for Utah to develop its energy resources in favor of protecting species?  That remains to be seen.)

So where do I fit?  I think maybe I don't.  Kent gave me a link to an interesting TED talk by Jonathan Haidt, who is one of the researchers behind the Moral Foundations survey: "The moral roots of liberal and conservatives."  Though he is a self-proclaimed liberal, Haidt wraps up his short lecture by insisting that both sides of the political spectrum need to listen to each other.  Liberals consider themselves open-minded and diverse, yet if they are closed to conservative viewpoints, their open-mindedness goes out the window.  I agree that both sides need to be present in our society, but more importantly, they need to make compromises politically if we are ever going to make lasting progress.

I guess that means I'm more of a moderate independent.

So will I renege my Republican registration?  Not in Utah; especially not here in Utah County.  In this state, the only way to have a voice with my vote is to work through the Republican primary process, since it will almost always be a Republican who wins.  At each November vote, I can still vote for whatever candidate I like (and it hasn't always been the Republican), but at least I might get a good candidate through the primary elections.

I haven't voted yet, because I'm undecided on our local school board candidates.  However, for our national leader, I will be voting for Mitt Romney.  Even if Mitt weren't the candidate, I would almost certainly still vote against Barack Obama.  In a nutshell, here's why.

My vote for Romney:

Major reason:  I liked Mitt Romney during the primaries leading up to the 2008 election.  It's not because he shares my religious persuasion, but because I respect him as a businessman.  I have wanted a businessman (or woman) in the White House for many years.  I think a businessperson will have an understanding of and solutions for our economy that lawyers and politicians just won't grasp or believe.  Romney's track record in turning around corporations and giving the U.S. a profitable Winter Olympics leads me to believe that he can do a better job for our economy than most anyone else who has been presented as a presidential option.  I expect he'll make budget cuts that will hurt, but that will also make Americans take more responsibility for their own decisions.  Yes, I would even give up the EITC or the Child Tax Credit if that would help balance our budget.  I also believe he has the right business and leadership experience to negotiate trade relations with China and other countries that we must work with.

Minor reason:  I like the people Mitt Romney surrounds himself with.  I like Paul Ryan, and I like that Mitt's family members are the ones reaching out to his base.

My vote against Obama:

Major reason:  I don't believe he represents Americans well or has America's best interests at heart.  I don't generally like how he handles international affairs.  I don't like his extravagant parties and vacations in the midst of our tanking economy.  I don't like his position on abortion.  (He and Michelle Obama are more left on that issue than even many liberals).  He has said things that I agree with, and I'm trying to give Obamacare the benefit of the doubt, but overall I don't think he represents the majority of Americans, including many who voted for him as a symbol of a new American era in 2008 based on his race and his "Hope and Change" campaign.  

Minor reason:  I don't trust the people President Obama surrounds himself with.  His close ties with Planned Parenthood and Acorn make me nervous.  Van Jones and Reverend Wright are also not good people to have listened to.  His extensive use of teleprompters has me wondering how much of what he says comes from his own brain.

Ahhh...my newly self-labeled Independent mind feels better already.  Now that all that political stuff is off my chest, I can go vote on Tuesday and take my blog back to happier posts about family events, funny kids, and the upcoming holidays.