Let Down

There are many types of  Let Downs; letting myself down (by trying too hard) that makes me feel bad, but also more productive let downs that cheers me up...

My week has, and still is, being dominated by our looming School Carnivore.  OK, I really MUST stop calling it that.  It is our School Car-ni-val this weekend - A.K.A  T O-bloody-MORROW!!

Today, I'm booked to bake. To donate. And I have to transport many boxes and items up to the school. I have to avoid donating anymore of my time..

I have to 'not' let down the home-team again since I dropped the ball on our Best Dressed Teddy entry. This little cutie was completely forgotten until after the deadline - because my brain was full and as a result fully functioning memory was not an option.  She's a bunny not a teddy, but still, she may have won a prize... [I have to let it go].

So a super-quick post this week, riffing on my theme of this week - Let Downs.

So lets talk about Let Downs.. of the hemming kind.

Way back when She-Who-Worships-Pink hadn't yet discovered "the very best colour of all" we dressed her in primary colours and a lot of Denims. Two particular items, a pair of Gap Jeans and her Denim Overalls, I just loved to pieces.

But children do tend to grow and there's not a lot we can do about that.  They're meant to. It's their job.

Fortunately for me, our little munchkin was shooting up rather than out, so I had a better chance of getting more life out of these old favourites:

Her beloved Gap jeans got the basic treatment first.  Problem: the lovely embroidery put the kibosh on cutting them down for shorts. So I let down all the hem there was and treated the raw edge to a good zig-zagging before sewing some heavy duty ribbon over that. I gained about 4cms (just over one and a half inches). 

I played on the colours of the existing embroidery to make it look like it was part of the design and camouflaged the fading, where the original hem had been, using some navy Ric Rac trim. The idea here was to disguise and add texture without making it look too busy.
These jeans were admired by many, and everyone who commented on them assumed the trim was part of the design. [smug grin].

The next wardrobe staple was a bit more difficult because these were so plain; no existing decoration to work with.  It was love at first sight with these overalls (or dungarees/ coveralls depending on where you're from). They're breezy in summer with just a tee-shirt, or warm in winter with a jumper and all the while still protecting little knees from scrapes. I actually bought these in the boys department, but in the end they turned out looking quite girly.

As you can see I went to town on these with the Ric Rac. I added home made Gingham trim to extend the hem with ribbon and a little decorative kerchief sewed into the back pocket just for fun.

Here below shows the transition from the original (with turned up cuffs) to where I gained 5cms (2 inches) in length and we got another years wear out of them.

In contrast to all this laborious lengthening of hems, our bunny's school uniform (above), was made from a fabric off-cut from Pinkster's school uniform - so long was that hem.

I still think we could have taken a prize.. [get over it!]

Oh and to add insult to injury (if you can call missing your 'Best Dressed Teddy' entry deadline an injury - brain injury perhaps??)  Well you know how I mentioned the baking stuff? I was supposed to produce a box of home-baked gingerbread cookies for the school to sell on the refreshment stand.

I used a recipe I've done a dozen times and still, STILL they came out burnt on the bottoms and under-cooked and crumbling on top. GAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Even the shape went horribly wrong; Using my footprint cookie cutter, they were supposed to be cute little feet with red-icing painted toenails. Instead they went all fat and bloated with tiny nubby toes...actually they look exactly like my own feet did in the latter stages of pregnancy (only with black burnt bottoms).

Oh, the shame.

I must except the fact that I am culinarily challenged and leave all things oven-related to my more competent peers.

Can I just say though, that I did ask for your advice/ vote in my last post; I said "show of hands - Bake or Buy???" I asked the question and no-one answered, so here I am smack back in Disasterville.

OK I forgive you, after all I didn't give you much notice.

So moving right along, in case you didn't already click the text just above, click the pic here to find out how I came to be in this sorry state. For any (many) other sorry states,  follow the other links to the right of this post. Or a few choice ones below:

A Woman's Work is never done

Worse than The Elephant in The Room

ARF!

A Woman's Work...

"HOW WAS YOUR DAY, DEAR?" Oh you know...same ol', same ol'..

And I thought I was stressed-out and chasing my tail before.. well nothing compares to the build-up of an impending School Carnivore ...
 
My neighbour warned me, when her boy started Kindy, that it was hard work.
She said to me; "It's like I just got another full-time job, you know?"
And of course I didn't. 

Now though I often feel like a personal assistant to a CEO rather than a mum.
Would someone tell me please, how the hell do you women with more than one child do it????
Even simple stuff like obtaining spots in extra-curricular activities that can work- in real time- seems impossible without the need for wearing your undies over your tights, or calling on the fat lady with a pumpkin and six white mice.

I tell you, I practically had to sell my soul to Satan and promise my next child (like I could have one), just to change her swimming lesson time to anything more manageable than fifteen minutes out of the school gate or cocktail hour. I asked every week, twice a week, for a full term.

I mean seriously though, HOW THE HELL DO WOMEN WITH MORE THAN ONE CHILD DO IT ??? 
Because this was a typical 'lazy day' for me and my only child before the start of big school:

9:30 - sort and load washing
10:30 - Shop for jelly crystals as promised
11am - Pinkster's -haircut buy take-out coffee and Pick-up dry-cleaning
12 - Cook & serve lunch for Pinkster, hang out washing and make jelly together
1pm - Pinkster's chiropractic appointment
2pm - Pinkster's School Start Interview
2:45 - pick up some groceries and lunch for me (because I snap at the crotch of a low-flying duck by now)
3.30-4-30 - jolly good lie down (A.K.A. fall-in-a-heap due to malnourishment)
4-45 - tidy up from unsupervised rampant play-time and  vacuum house
5-30 - run bath- put child in to soak and finish housework
6pm - cook and serve Pinkster's dinner, wash up
6:30 - wrestle jelly out of the mold
6:40 - The Pinkster and I discover that she doesn't actually like 'eating' Jelly
6:50 until wine-o-clock - The whole bath, teeth & bed hostage situation.
7:30 - ooh goodie time to think about tonight's dinner for grown-ups - get drunk instead and order Chinese

At this point in time I was still naively  looking forward to all the promised 'freedom' I would have once she started school. (hysterical laughter spills over the keyboard - oh that must be the wine).

So now we're in high gear, almost 3 terms under the belt, I volunteered when I could, I've baked, I've sewed costumes, I've coached all the lagging subjects, I've helped pour literally hundreds of cups of tea and walked the boards of the school hall proffering trays of scones.

But in just these last two weeks - man oh man, we've had; Father's day (and we were making him a photo memory book), a family visitor, a federal election, the Jump for Heart Fund Raiser, Miss Lovely Smile's Birthday 'thing' and all the while gearing up for, what Pinkster calls; The School Carnivore.

Already I've totally dropped the ball on the best dressed teddy entry, but I did well on donations for the quality second hand children's' clothes stall (which involved a world of extra washing - let me tell you).

I completely botched the "purchase-your-ride-tickets-online-lest-you-spend-the-rest-of-your-natural-life-in-a-queue" deadline. So I may have to employ someone for a sleep-out the evening before. That's because I can't go early to queue on the day because it's my week to carpool the girls to French lessons on Saturday.

I actually managed to negotiate with Pinkster a parting with some mint-condition baby toys to donate to another stall. This was a long and emotionally exhausting process, during which she negotiated that I will be buying her a Barbie Dream house for her birthday...to fill  up the space made by the donated toys of course.
But all in all it was a successful task... until the note in the school bag appeared the following day saying there was no more space and "please no more donations of toys". So that stuff will go back in the attic I guess freshly washed, maybe we'll try again next year..maybe the children's hospital..?

Anyway during this long, long fortnight, I got to thinking what do I do with my time? Why are my days so short? Why can't I manage to blog twice a week? Why am I always running around like a headless chook? Forever out of breath at afternoon pick-up? And why is my novel still  unfinished?

So I worked it out. Meticulously. This is the only kind of pie I can bake competently that doesn't involve replacing ovens or food poisoning.

Ironically, next note to appear in her school bag tells me I'm about to receive a cake-box? How lovely!
Uh oh - this is something I'm supposed to fill with home baked cookies to sell at - you guessed it The School Carnivore!

I really must stop calling it that - it's only cute when 'she' says it.

So amongst all this moaning about my lot - I think often of the mum's at our school who do all this, PLUS canteen, PLUS being class or year co-ordinators, PLUS work in the uniform shop, volunteer for every-bloody-thing there is and those same women have a bunch of kids- not just one. AND some of them have jobs! (as in paid ones with superannuation and health benefits) AND some of them are even working on degrees as well as working!!
Hey now, that's just showing off. Or are they secretly wearing their undies over her tights and doing laps of the neighbourhood rooftops at night?

HOW DO THEY BLOODY DO IT ??????????????
 
OK so tonight the cake box came home: a box big enough to park a Mac Truck (OK slight exaggeration there; more like three dozen cup cakes) which is still huge. 

Can I have a show of hands; Who thinks I'm an idiot for considering actually baking, instead of buying, enough *gingerbread-feet biscuits (I don't do people because it seems cruel biting them) to fill this thing ??

Please cast your vote, people: I'm losing what's left of my good judgement along with my marbles.
Buy or Bake?   Bake or Buy?



Speaking of baking, what's that awful burning smell?  OH SHIT, THE ROAST! I've just incinerated dinner again! CRAP!





* I make gingerbread biscuits in the shape of feet and paint the toenails with red icing - v cute and v. labour-intensive.