I hate flying in an airplane. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. And yet at least once a year I tend to find myself doing it anyway. Not because I want to, but because I do want to experience whatever is on the other side of the plane ride and no one else seems to buy my argument that taking your time to drive to your destination not only creates a nice bonding experience between you and your fellow car-trippers but also allows you to create your own schedule and stop at some great local places you would never see otherwise.

Ugh. Despite my better judgment I’m getting on a plane tomorrow morning with my friend Lauren for a girls’ weekend in Nashville. I’m sure we will have a great time and I know I sound like a total brat complaining since I know a lot of moms who would kill for the chance to get away for 3 days. I’m totally excited to get a break, to sleep, see Nashville, sleep, hang out with Lauren, and especially sleep. But I hate flying. HATE IT!

I’m not afraid of terrorists or emergency landings or strip searches. I’m not even afraid to die. It’s very irrational, but being in a plane gives me intense panic attacks. Every time there is the slightest noise from the landing gear or whenever the plane leans a little bit to one side I am suddenly convinced that there is a dire emergency and the entire plane is going to rip in half and I will be sucked through the engine and ripped to shreds or fall 10,000 feet and splat on the pavement, both very unflattering an uncomfortable ways to die, I imagine. I’m not scared to be dead, I’m afraid of knowing I’m about to die a agonizing death and then having to experience it.

I’m also afraid of leaving Eddie to raise two small children by himself and of leaving my kids without a mom, but this really has nothing to do with flying since I could potentially die any number of other ways. (I sincerely hope you weren’t hoping for a pick-me-up today because this certainly is not it.)

So every time I have to fly my poor husband gets the pleasure of being woken up at 3:00 in the morning for several days in a row by me either in tears saying things like “What if this is our last chance to hold each other?” Or very seriously saying something along the lines of “If you have to raise the kids by yourself I want you to make sure that Nicholas leans how to be chivalrous.” Or “Maybe I should make a video for the kids, just in case.” To his credit, even though I know he thinks I’m ridiculous, he is always very patient with this process and tries to say something reassuring like telling me I need to trust God more. I guess he’s optimistic that the more times I fly the more chances I’ll get to be convinced that I’m totally safe.

But I’ll never be convinced of that no matter how true it might be.

So if I die tomorrow, or today for that matter, these are the things I want for my children:

1. A solid foundation in their faith.
2. Friends and family who will rise to the occasion and help Eddie raise them.
3. A college education
4. The knowledge that I loved them
5. Financial security (Hopefully those hefty life insurance policies we’re paying for will do their job.)
6. Traditions that will be carried on and maybe passed on to their own children
7. Good manners
8. The desire to help others

If they were older I would also hope for fond memories.

Mommy loves you, babies.

I plan to be back Sunday.

I’m also posting this one on the other blog, but here goes…Aren’t you lucky? You get three blog posts from me today!

Pottery Barn Sweater Pillow

These sweater pillows from Pottery Barn are super cute.

What is not cute is the fact that they charge $39.00 for the cover. Just the cover. Then you have to pay an additional $24 if you want the pillow insert, which you probably do seeing as how that’s the actual pillow part & all. Then there is a $6 shipping fee for the insert. The cover they are kind enough to ship for free.

Oh, Pottery Barn, why must you torture me so? I love you & your design style and your awesome ideas like making something as comfy as a pillow even more comfy by wrapping it in a cozy sweater. That being said, there is just no way I’m paying $69 for one pillow. With tax that’s more than $70 FOR ONE PILLOW!

I can’t swing that. But I can swing $3.50, and that’s exactly what I paid for the knock-off I made today. 🙂

You see, I bought this sweater at Goodwill yesterday with this project in mind. Then I washed it, because, well, you know.

Then I cut one big square out of the front and another big square out of the back & sewed them together on 3 sides.

Then I took one of these hideous pillows that came with the love seat we have in our basement, stuck it inside & sewed up the last end. If you wanted to get creative you could make some kind of button closure, but I’m cheap, excuse me, frugal, and impatient, so I did it the easy way.

And I got the pillow on the left, pictured here with the adorable starfish pillows I got super cheap a few weeks ago. Remember them? He he, feeling super proud today of the fact that I paid a grand total of $11 for these two pillows while someone else could have ordered them from PB for over $90.

Please do yourself a favor and do not buy things from the PB that you can make yourself. Save your money in case something amazing comes along that you just can’t duplicate, like those crab melamine plates. Sigh. I’m still excited about those! (which I did buy, at their full retail price, and it was worth it.)

Today we went back to the Market. (Yes, I took two books like I promised.) We got some produce, bread, a lemonade, and a ceramic pain-it-yourself train night light cover for me to make with Nicholas later this week. That trip, which only lasted about 15 minutes, went fairly smoothly, so I decided to stop at the thrift store on the way home.

I was looking for glassware to add to my expanding collection of apothecary jars. (I made 4 more last week with jars & dessert glasses I got at our church yard sale for a grand total of $2.50) I struck out with the glassware, but I did score a lamp, drop leaf table, and a sweater that I plan to re-purpose & I managed to stay under my unofficial $20 weekly budget. I’ll tell you more about those later when my projects are finished, but I had to share a cute story…

While we were in Goodwill I was pushing the cart full of my finds, carrying the baby, and Nicholas was walking “like a big boy.”- His words. Naturally, being a three-year-old, he was drawn to the shelf full of toddler toys. I was trying to coax him across the store to see if I could find the kind of white sweater I wanted for my next Pottery Barn knock-off project. (I did find it after 20 minutes of searching, saying “Nick? Come stand with Mommy, please.” and a trip to the bathroom.)

Anyway, his response to my nagging was “Mommy, I have to stay right here. I’m looking for my treasures.” Then we would walk past something like a plaid hat & he would say “Oh, there’s a treasure.” It was quite adorable. The funny thing is that I don’t think he picked this up from me, I don’t remember using that word to refer to my flea market finds. I still didn’t let him buy anything, since we had just gotten the night light at the Market, but it’s nice to have a little guy who can see “treasures” at the Goodwill.

Ok, as far as I can tell, they didn’t sell fat pigs at the York Central Market, but I did take the kids there this morning. My friend Satoko, who is an artist/mom & shares her amazing creations over on her blog Sunshine Smile, goes to Central Market every week. I’ve been curious since we moved here, but since the market’s in the middle of downtown with only street parking, I’ve been hesitant to drive down there, try to parallel park the mini-van & juggle the kids and the double stroller in the middle of the street.

Well, today the cupboards were bare (how many nursery rhyme references will fit in one blog post?) so I decided to suck it up and lug everything down there since I was going to have to go grocery shopping one way or another. Lucky for me, I found a spot right in front of the market where two meters in a row were open, so the parking wasn’t too big of an issue. Yeah!

It was your general farmer’s market with a few vendors selling other stuff, like antique furniture, candy, & candles. I think next time we need to try a different time, because at 9:30 less than half the booths were open & those that were looked thoroughly picked through. They open at 6am and stay open through early afternoon. I am thinking that the farmers get there early, so if you want produce early is better, but some of the other booths were just starting to open as we were leaving around 10.

The furniture dealer had a really awesome old, long, narrow suitcase-looking thing that I am assuming is a gun case. It would have been the perfect piece for our downstairs mantle. I was envisioning the apothecary jars I made last week grouped on top of it. Plus it was only $17. I waited for about 10 minutes, but the vendor was nowhere to be found & the kids were getting antsy, so I passed it up. Still kicking myself over that one.

The kids & I shared a huge soft pretzel & lemonade and we bought some produce from two very sweet elderly ladies who reminded me of the women who used to collect my Mommom’s newspapers & sell eggs.

There was also a really cool free book exchange shelf where you could drop off a book & take one from the shelf. I didn’t know about the shelf, so I didn’t bring a book to exchange, but guess what was staring at me on that shelf? A book called Play Therapy! How could I pass that up given Nicholas’ issues & the fact that I am paying a play therapist every week? Ok, I confess, I took it. I promise to bring two books with me next time to make up for the transgression.

Overall, it was a cute way to spend a cloudy Tuesday morning and we’ll go back. I do wish it was a little larger, though, or that there were more vendors. It sort of paled in comparison to the farmer’s markets that we had in Tampa or that I’ve gone to with my aunt who lives in rural VA, but I guess that’s what I get for comparing it to markets in the south. Like I said, it was cute and it’s a good way to support local farmers. Plus, I want my kids to have a good understanding of where food comes from, hence the home gardens & last week’s trip to Barefoot Farm to pick our own strawberries. Sheesh, there’s a lot I didn’t realize I was going to have to think about as a parent. As long as my kids don’t wind up like those kids on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution show who couldn’t identify a single vegetable, we’ll be ok.

Gardening and I have a love/hate relationship. I would love to be able to have a nice, pretty garden, preferably a vegetable or herb garden because I love to cook, but nothing I ever plant does very well. I resent my lack of success in this area and resolve to try again every year. For eight years in a row nothing has grown. Eddie has better luck, so our gardens have historically looked very nice. Except now that he has a longer commute and we have two tiny children, he doesn’t have as much time to do yard work.

So our gardens this year are a mess! I ordered some roses & my aunt, who is an amazing gardener, gave us some hyacinth beans to grow a vine up our lamp post. So far both are growing, but not flowering. They are also amidst a ridiculous pile of weeds that has overtaken the front garden that poor Eddie worked so hard to clear out, edge & hire someone to come grind our 14 stumps from old bushes that died in this year’s record snowstorm.

I also planted a small vegetable garden with Nicholas, but so far everything is just tiny & green so I can’t tell the difference between the weeds & the vegetables.

But today Eddie was mowing the lawn and came in with amazing news! My raspberry bush had berries! 9 of them! Granted, some had rotted. Granted some of its leaves are dead. But it had berries! I’m calling this a success!

Also, I have managed to successfully grow basil & parsley in my kitchen window sill. I also planted rosemary, but that hasn’t done so well.

But still, 3 plants that have survived to produce something is better than none, right?

Does this mean that after years and years of trying my black thumb is turning green? I hope so!