Happy New Year!

Yikes! It's been nearly a year since I've added a post! One of my new year's resolutions: To write more about my Mama. I've had stories floating around in my head all year, but haven't taken the time to type them out.

I'm gonna blame this guy:



Mom would've loved this little dude. Every stubborn and hilarious inch.

Drake is what you would call an "active" child. And has moved into a new stage of general destruction around the house. Which got me to thinking about what things I destroyed as kid...

An oven. I destroyed an oven.

And I wasn't even a kid. I was in my early 20s.

When I was in college, I had an internship at the Minnesota Children's Museum. Part of my internship was to help create and execute an art activity for kids. The theme was: Crazy Crayons! And in my research on activities with crayons, I stumbled upon instructions on how to make your own crayons by breaking up old crayons into muffin tins and melting them together in the oven. My first batch? Brilliant! The different colors of wax swirled together in a cookie-shaped crayon of crazy! Success!

It was the second batch - I couldn't leave well-enough alone. I wanted to break new ground in crazy crayon-making...what other shapes could be made? I dug around in my parents kitchen drawer and found a gingerbread man cookie cutter. Fun! A man shaped crayon!

So, I carefully wrapped the bottom of the cookie cutter in tinfoil and filled it with broken crayon bits and threw it in the oven for the few minutes of melting. It wasn't long before smoke started billowing out of the oven, and when I opened it, I could see that the crayon wax had seeped through the tinfoil, dripped onto the cookie sheet, and then onto the bottom of the oven. My Mom's oven had a large puddle of crayon wax in it. Crap!!! Was every Thanksgiving turkey from now on going to have the taste of Burnt Sienna or Cadet Blue?

And just as I was having a minor freak-out moment, Mom walked in to see what all the fuss was about...

Me: "Um, Mom - I think I may have ruined your oven."

Mom: "Eh - I don't care. I don't cook much anyway, and I've always hated that oven."