Homemade Ugly Dolls

My son Hayden loves to do projects. Over the years we have made bird feeders out of soda bottles, bird houses and wind chimes out of found objects, designed and beaded myriad necklaces and bracelets, and have painted, sculpted, and drawn countless creations. Today we tackled sewing.

Hayden loves Ugly Dolls and wanted to design his own. His friend Samantha thought that sounded like fun so she joined us. They drew their prototypes, then made the patterns. I think the most fun part was devising the face. Samantha had to leave early to go to her guitar concert so hers isn't assembled yet, but Hayden's is finished and is shown below (the red checkered one) sitting with two of the Ugly Dolls he already owned.

My Yardstick: Bathrooms and French Fries

After spending about 90 seconds with me, you learn that from June to August easily 80% of my spare time is spent alongside baseball diamonds. Both my boys are fortunate enough to play on summer all-star teams and that means I travel all over CT to watch. At the end of last year's season, I realized that I had begun to rate the little league fields I visit. My criteria? Bathroom cleanliness and how good the french fries are. Today, I share my findings.

Rec Park in Southington: Home of Southington South
They win the prize for the yummiest ballpark fries I have yet to taste, but have the least pleasant to use bathrooms. The facilities are behind the outfield and one tends to feel like psycho-killers are lurking around every corner. There is also never, ever any toilet paper or soap. Not good.

Parker Farms Fields in Wallingford: Home of Yalesville Little League
Our home fields get the spic-n-span prize. Bathrooms are always clean and well stocked with all the necessary tools. While the fries are acceptable, the true finds at this stand are the chicken nuggets (the best I have ever had anywhere) and the fried dough (quite yummy and not fried—it's cooked in a convection oven so you don't even have to feel guilty about eating it).

McCabe-Waters Little League Fields in Bristol
These bathrooms are even dirtier that the Southington commodes, the bowl overflowed every day we visited the field, but they did have soap and towels. While it was way too hot to eat during the week the Yalesville 10s played here, others sampled their fried oreos and raved. I enjoyed their raspberry blue slushie cups profusely. I did not enjoy the poison ivy that surrounds their outfield.

Memorial Park: Home of Southington North
Very nice fields. Bathrooms are clean, but their sink is annoying. The water only stays on if you hold the button down, making it difficult to actually wash both hands. Plus, if your attention gets diverted by the big, creepy spider's web in the corner, it can actually distract you from doing your business. Again, it was too hot to eat their french fries, but this field has a big plus: there is a Rita's Italian Ice right around the corner.

Breen Field at the Giamatti Little League Center in Briston: Home of Edgewood Little League
Gorgeous fields with the best stands for viewers. The bathrooms are immaculate, but there are no paper towels...just hand blowers (which I detest). Their fries were delish but they had the slowest service I have ever experienced.

Blackham School Fields in Bridgeport
Gross, gross, gross. Enough said.

Unity Park in Trumbull
Huge complex of fields, too bad the fields are in such bad shape. The bathrooms were tolerable, but their food was alarmingly over priced.

Berlin Little League Fields
Very nice fields sort of nestled down in a cozy spot. They get low marks from this sports fan because they lock their bathrooms, requiring that you have to wait in line and ask for a key every time you have to tinkle. Very inconvenient.

Plainville Little League Fields
These fields will always have a special place in my heart. While the food is good and the potty rooms are adequate, what makes them important to me is that this is the spot where my family gathered the night my father-in-law passed away. That night, July 9 2008, Turner ripped a line drive up the middle showing us shades of the hitter he'd become.

West Haven Little League Fields
The beautiful ocean breezes make this a nice place to watch a game, even though overall the feeling of the site is a bit grubby. There is litter everywhere. Their food stand is immaculate and I hear the egg sandwich is to die for. I did not partake. The bathroom facilities are totally acceptable. I am a fan of their league president who openly berated parents from Guilford for drinking beer at a little league facility (which is not allowed!). These same parents were making bloody marys in the parking lot of the Yalesville fields this summer.

Old Tavern Road Park: home of Orange Little League
This is a large complex of 6 fields, made to look even larger because their parking is in the middle of all the fields. They win the prize for strangest bathroom experience. The commode is adjacent to one of their big diamonds. Because it has been so hot, the bathroom door and roof vent to the out building were propped open. As the sports fans were cheering "go, go, go" to the action on the field, this potty-goer couldn't help but feel like they were cheering for me.

What's a Girl to Do?

A small thought for today, motivated by Real Simple magazine's column that features new ways to repurpose items in your house:

What do you do with plastic bags? I mean when you are done with using them for their original purpose?

After having radically reduced the amount of plastic bags in my house by religiously carrying by canvas shopping bags with me everywhere, I find myself pondering ways to make the most out of the few plastic bags that now make their way into my house.

I have even stopped using the smaller plastic bags that the grocery store offers for produce. Instead I load hard fruits into one canvas bag that has a zipper. And for soft fruits I use an invention my mom made. She has repurposed the mesh bags that onions come in (see photo) and now I carry those with my canvas bags.

But what about the plastic bags that rice cakes come in? And what about the plastic bags that line cereal boxes? What's a girl committed to helping mother earth to do with those?

Here are some of my ideas. The rice cake bags go with me when I walk my dog. I know there are products you can buy that package a scroll of plastic bags that attach to your dogs leash, but i forego that expense and fashion convenience in favor the economy and ecology of reusing bags I have already paid for. And the cereal bags make great liners for my guinea pig's cage.

What about you? What are some of the inventive ways you are reusing plastics that come into your house?

Apparently, I am a Landlord

I have a new tenant. She is the nicest one I have had so far.

There is a bird's next in the shrub by the front corner of my house. It has been there for about 8 years. Each winter it degrades a bit, but then a new mommy bird spruces it up and sets up her spot to sit on her eggs for the spring. Usually it is a red-breasted robin.

I love that the nest is inhabited annually. The fact that we haven't completely pushed nature out by our noise and pollution encourages me.

When I have peeked in on the progress of the nest in previous Springs, the mommy robin has dive bombed me, squawking and flapping, thinking I am a threat to her babes. But not this year.

The mom in the nest this year—a beautiful mourning dove, I think—is so sweet and trusting it makes my heart ache. Look at her sweet face. I love the tiny rim of light blue that rings her eyes. I can't wait to meet her babes.

Taking Me to the Edge

Thirteen years ago today I became a mom. At 12:16 a.m. on May 20, 1997 I wasn't a mom. Then some cosmic switch was flipped and at 12:17 a.m. I was a mom. I had no idea what I was in for.

I was never one of those little girls obsessed with dollies who dreamed of being a mom. Quite frankly I just couldn't picture it. Yet my God had other plans for me; first Paulie came into my life, and then together we created Turner.

There is something extraordinary about your first born. They are the one that takes you from the "before" version of you to the "after" version of you. I can't imagine my first child being anyone else but Turner. He is my limit-testing, boundary-pushing, curious, energetic, sensitive, talkative, goofy, and so-so-so loving big boy. He loves to figure things out...from how to make a bird house out of tape to helping his dad assemble or repair anything (often figuring out just the solution to make it all work perfectly). He has an emotional depth well beyond his years (and quite frankly not often found in his gender) that makes him an extraordinary friend, brother, son, grandson, etc.

The challenge of parenting Turner is often the joy of parenting him. I find that when I am in the process of helping him to become his best self, I am at my best. It is a rare and precious gift he gives me.

So this one is for my Big T on his big day...Happy 13th birthday buddy. Thanks for taking me to the interesting edges of life on a daily basis. I love you more than my tongue can tell!

—Mom

Earth Day 2010

Celebrate and respect the joy and beauty of our Earth, today and everyday.





















rain kissed closed tulip













sun drenched open tulips

Beachcombing

Our 7th annual April beach day at Hammonasset was wonderful. Nearly 25 of us hung out, played and enjoyed the crisp ocean breezes all afternoon. I bribed the kids to leave the beach with a promise of a stop at DQ! I always look forward to combing the beach in search of nature's treasures. This year was no exception. However, my finds broke my heart.

After walking less than half a mile down the beach, our trash bag was more than half full. I wanted to shout, "Really? We're not beyond littering? People really still do that?!!!" But nobody would have heard me as the waves rolled on and on.

Once my emotionalism had passed, I started to itemize what was in the trash bag. In addition to a month-old half-rotten flip flop (and this is on a state beach that gets routinely groomed) and more cigarette butts than I could count, the predominant items found on the beach were pieces of Dunkin Donuts coffee cups. Soooooo depressing to me. As we head into Earth Day, consider bringing your re-usable coffee cup when you buy your coffee at your favorite local coffee house. And if you do purchase coffee in a disposable container, I implore you to recycle the cardboard wrappers and iced coffee cups (most are 1s).