4-H quality, or not so much

Growing up, my mom was a 4-H leader for my sister, me and a few girls in the neighborhood. We'd work on learning skills throughout the summer and enter our projects (baking, cake decorating, sewing, etc.) into the county fair in the fall. If we did well enough, we were selected to enter in the state fair. We knew what the judges would be looking for: the perfect golden brown and consistent crackling across all four cookies of constant size; the perfectly raised, lightly browned, banana bread with an even crack down the middle; perfectly detailed stitching, evenly gathered, no puckers, all threads neatly trimmed. You get the idea. We called this "4-H quality". If it was going to be good enough to win, it had to be 4-H quality.

In my family, we still somewhat affectionately refer to this level of perfection as 4-H quality, or, in the words of Mary Popppins, "Practically perfect in every way." It's mostly a joke with my sister and me now.

I've been sewing quite a bit lately, and have been thinking about "4-H quality". I'm slowly but surely coming to accept the realization that pretty much nothing I do is 4-H quality. I've sewn two dresses for Macy, a pioneer trek dress for the neighbor, and bound a few quilts over the last several weeks, and not one of these was even close. As far as baking is concerned, we can't even go there, because cold cereal and mac'n'cheese don't even have a 4-H quality level to discuss, and that's about all I've done for several months! (Much to Jeremy's dismay, I'm sure. I should mention that Jeremy seems to bake all the cookies and banana bread around here, and he hits 4-H quality just about every time! Go figure.)

Usually my comments about a finally-finished project go something like this, "Well, it's certainly not 4-H quality, but it will do." After all, who cares that I didn't pick out all of my basting stitches that held the gathers in place for final stitching? Okay, so maybe I'm settling on the quality, but now I prefer to think that I'm settling for sanity, sans perfection!

tag....6 quirks

I got tagged today, so, thanks to Lisa, I'm supposed to list six quirks about me. I usually consider myself a pretty boring, ordinary person, but when I started thinking about Karla quirks, they just kept on comin'! There are several that I would never reveal to you! Here are a few that I dare, at risk of being considered crazy (or perhaps confirming crazy!).

1. Counting stairs. Yes, I know...weird. I always count stairs as I step on them: at home, at school (okay, when I was in school), and anywhere else (doctor's office, theater, neighbor's house). Up and down. At home I always know what stair number I'm stepping on. When I'm somewhere new, I try to guess how many stairs there are before I climb (or descend). I always remember counting stairs. My habit probably started growing up in a multi-level home: four stairs down to the family room, and ten stairs down to the main basement from there, then three more stairs to the pool table; twelve stairs to get upstairs to my bedroom from the kitchen. Maybe this is not a quirk after all, but OCD!

2. License plates. I tend to remember license plate numbers, in whole or part, of people I see often or know well, like family or co-workers that park in the same lot. I still remember part of the number of Jeremy's red geo metro that he drove in high school (when I had a crush on him): 355 something something G.

3. Phone numbers. I still remember phone numbers of several of my neighbor's growing up and or old numbers of friends or family, some of whom I haven't ever called that much and/or haven't called for years!

4. Fist, Mouth. I can fit almost my entire fist inside my mouth.

5. Rhythmic fidgeting or tapping. Sometimes when I'm either zoned out or concentrating, I catch myself tapping my fingers or shaking/bouncing my legs, but I always subconsciously follow a rhythm or pattern in my fidgeting. You know, like right-left-right-left-right-right-left, pause, repeat.

6. Weird elbows. My elbows bend further than they should, beyond straight. This always caused a problem in dance when we had arm actions like a "V" with both arms up and outward, like the "Y" action in the YMCA dance. I had to be conscious that my "V" didn't resemble something like flamingo legs. (I always thought their legs looked awkward, like they were bending in the wrong place.) I can also twist my elbow to be facing up when I have my arm out in front of me.

Here's the tag: Moey, Lisa D, Erin, Shannon, Jenni Mc, Jennifer D

dress-up and fairy godmother

Macy has loved wearing everyone else's shoes since she could stand by herself, but I think this one is my favorite of all time. She found a pair of my nylons and dress shoes and decided to try them on all by herself. It took her quite some time and quite the level of concentration to get the stockings on.

It was hilarious to watch her prance around in her lovely ensemble....notice the excess stockings dragging behind her! And here's the fairy godmother that came to visit later in the day.Bippity!
Boppity!
Boo!

grandma

Grandma W (my mom's mom) passed away July 5, and we spent part of this last weekend at her funeral in Idaho. As strange as it may seem, I actually enjoy funerals because they focus on so many good things about the person being honored - what a fitting end to life on this earth.

We remember growing up and visiting Grandma in Woodville, Idaho. We loved playing in the irrigation water in the yard and running around Grandma's house playing our favorite made-up game "zap" - I think every room had two entries so we ran loopdy-doops (and probably drove Grandma crazy!). We loved listening to the chimes on the porch in the country and eating Grandma's comfort food.

We were able to say good-bye to Grandma the day before she passed. Honestly, this was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's easy to see the blessing you had when it's taken away from you. I'll always carry my fond memories of Grandma and smile when I see those crazy-colored blankets she made for everyone in the family.

yard work and more karl malonic

I'm starting to realize that I should probably be cherishing the time that my kids actually enjoy doing work, you know, because they still think it's fun! We had a spontaneous work outside and in the garage day - nothing major, just some weeding and cleaning up. Nolan did a fantastic job sweeping the garage.

Here's Macy taking a break in the shade on the front steps. She's loves wearing the gloves just like Mommy's gloves. (Only hers look much cuter than mine, all covered in dried up mud!)

Here are the kids later in the day headed to Mexico to visit Karl Malonic, who lives in Mexico now! They were sitting on the spare bed - a.k.a. The Airplane. Nolan and Karl Malonic both fly F16s, you know, and I think he was flying the F16 for their trip. It's not the greatest picture, but it sure was funny to see them in their travel attire!

eyes

I couldn't resist. I had to post this picture we took after church - Macy's "eyes" from Nursery. After Jeremy picked her up from class, she ran into the Relief Society room, wearing her glasses and grinning, "Mama - Eyes!" and pointing to her new accessory. Love it!

take me out to the ballgame!

Jeremy and I started a tradition several years ago on a road trip to Denver over the Fourth of July: attending the Rockies baseball game. (Remember? I am married to a baseballaholic.) Pretty much every year since then we have gone to a baseball game either July 4th or July 24th.
After all, what's more American than baseball? This year we hit the Bees game. (Nice pun! I didn't even do that on purpose!) We had a great time with PawPaw, Gammy, Uncle Spence, Aunt Moey, Leini and Whitney, and the kids loved the bopper-noise-maker-thing-a-mabobs they handed out to the crowd.

mopping

Today Nolan found a CapriSun drink pouch in the frig. He came downstairs, where I was preparing for a meeting, and asked if he could have it. He even offered to sit at the table to drink it and share it with Macy. Well, of course I said "yes" with that offering! To my dismay, when I went upstairs to check on them a few minutes later, they had poured it (more like sprayed it) into two cups and then dumped it all over the floor. I had no idea how much square footage one drink pouch could cover! Besides that, before I got to it, they had walked in it and tracked it all over the rest of the kitchen floor that wasn't already covered. I did a quick clean-up. Talk about sticky! After lunch I mopped the entire kitchen floor during their nap/quiet time. Ugh, even though it needed to be done anyway, ugh.

Mopping is certainly not my favorite cleaning chore! Okay, so there are several chores that are certainly not my favorite: cleaning the shower, the toilet, ironing (ask Jeremy, he pretty much does all his own ironing).....I could go on! But I won't.

So, here's the question of the day, what is your LEAST favorite chore?