The Queen's Rambles

*My mail man is extremely impressed with me. I just got a package–registered mail from Singapore. He was completely intrigued. Should I have told him it’s just a lady’s razor?

Years and years and years ago I fell in love with the Gillette Sensor Excel for Women. They discontinued them over a decade ago, but I held on to my handle and can still by blades for outrageous prices. I’ve tried several of the currently available razors, but none of them work nearly as well as this particular piece of plastic. My poor razor is covered in mildew and is completely disgusting. I’ve had it for at least 15 years. Yes. That’s a helluva long time to hold onto something so silly, and something so mildewy.

About a month ago I realized that people sell all kinds of crazy things on eBay. Maybe, just maybe, someone had an old stash of razors they were trying to offload.

Unfortunately that was not the case, but fortunately these razors are still made for the Singapore market and they are readily available for about $20 including shipping. At first the price turned me off, but then I sternly told myself “Dude, you’ve had this gross, mildewy razor for 15 years. You are worth twenty bucks.”

So now I have a new razor! And the mailman thinks I have something fancy from Singapore!

*We got five new windows today! They are completely amazing and do all kinds of things that windows should do that I never knew windows needed to do. They fold in, out, up, down. The screen goes different directions. There are all kinds of thief out/child in details. They are freakin’ amazing. Freakin’ expensive, too. They have a lifetime transferable warranty, so hopefully they will be worth it. If anything ever happens we just call a number, tell them which window and they bring out a new sash that pops right in.

Elsa has stuck her fingers in the wet caulk three times. The third time I spanked her, then we had a two hour recovery time while she screamed and cried and hated me. Spanking is not something I want to do and I am disappointed in myself. Now she doesn’t trust me and is angry. But she hasn’t put her fingers in the caulk again. She is much more sensitive than Erik ever was, and much better behaved in general. She doesn’t get in trouble very much and doesn’t know how to handle it when she does get in trouble. This is good and bad, of course. Good because maybe she will not be a troublemaker. Bad because what if she is like me and terrified of authority and misses opportunities because she’s afraid to ask?

*I was just introduced to the world of “busy bags” which are basically small activities for kids that fit in a ziplock bag. People are amazingly creative and love to share their ideas. I think I’m going to host a busy bag exchange since it would be a lot easier/cheaper to make 10 of one type and trade, then 10 different little bags.

The only problem is the blogs I’m finding these things on. What a rabbit hole I’ve gone down! I’m used to snark and honesty, not idealistic homeschoolers who are probably lying their pants off about their 5 year old taking a three hour nap every day. Or else they are drugging their kid. I don’t know. Maybe there are five year olds that like sleep. Even my kid who LOVES sleep stopped napping shortly after she turned two.

I can’t quite handle the braggy, crafty, home-schooling, money saving, Bible quoting blogs. It’s not any one thing, it’s everything combined. The shine of smug perfection. No one likes smug.

Plus, these kids don’t seem very real. I like the idea of the busy bags and the quiet time bins, both filled with things that the children can theoretically do alone. I just can’t quite imagine it working out so nicely. I can’t be the only one that has a kid attached to my leg 24/7. Elsa does play quietly by herself, but she certainly needs some modeling on an activity that has a specific purpose. That whole corner of the blog world is so unfamiliar to me and kind of horrifying. Kind of like the Mormon fashion blogs.

Plus you have to click through a million things to find the craft. No one seems to have an original idea. They all link to someone else’s work, who has linked to someone else’s work, so you can never find the directions, just the picture they’ve all stolen. Pintrest is horrible for this. I sort of hate pintrest. There. I said it. I’m a hater. It’d be great if there was a way to pin the original post, but hunting down a post that isn’t properly credited and leads to an error page makes me ragey.