Good Morning Silver Lining-ers!

Well good morning. If you follow me of Facebook and you are neurotic about checking all your social media as soon as you wake up, then you know that I went on a rant at 5:30am about not sleeping and being generally pissed with the universe. As if dreaming about teeth crumbling out of my mouth and trying to repair them with super glue wasn't bad enough... then the icing on the cake of being forced awake by a hot stream of piss on my back. Mind you this was his third accident of the night. 

With no dry spot left for me to go back to sleep I decided that I MUST turn my day around. So I grabbed the dog and my first cup of coffee and headed straight or the intercostal. Do you know how long it's been since I actually watched the sunrise? Like start to finish. Every spectrum of red, purple, and orange filled the sky. Well it tried to fill the sky. That bitch 'the universe' was waving her middle fingers at me with her cloud cover. 

But you know what? Who cares. I found my silver lining. Sunrise. Check. First cup of coffee alone in peace an quite. Check. One on one time with my explorer dog. Check. 

Mean while its now 7am. I am ready for my incredibly long day of being stranded at home with a nutty almost 4 yr old. But you know what? At least half the laundry is already done...since I was up all night washing sheets.  See what I did there? Looking for the positive. 

Silver lining bitches. 

Coffee Talks

"Adventures with LuLu!" - Jess

"No one wants to have an eyes closed party with me. 

I just want to nap." - Erin

What's new at Sparkle & Stone

I am just so excited about some of the lovely things 

popping up in my 

Sparkle & Stone Shop.

I have just added some raw gemstone necklaces 

to the collection. $25 free shipping.

Follow me on instagram for 

flash sales on new items!

Also, Don't forget about the Harrison Bracelet!

(read here for more details)

Details are coming very soon for exactly where to purchase

the Harrison Bracelet

along with the Hope From Harrison t-shirts!

DIY: Craspedia a.k.a Billy Balls

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies out there! 

Today, In honor of hating flower arrangements that shrivel up and die,

a little DIY that will last forever.

This one is really so easy that a little boy could make it all 

by himself (with some hot glue assistance) for his mommy!

Here's What You'll Need:

A hot glue gun

sticks

pom poms or felt balls

We collected our sticks on a little adventure around the block.

Once you have all your materials,

simply glue the balls to the sticks.

Yup, It's really that simple.

I pulled out one of my vintage bottles and filled the bottom with gold glass.

Then arranged the Pom Pom Craspedia 

and plopped them down on my favorite little nook of the house.

Random Acts of Gratitude

I have been talking about this project for some time now.  Trying to get feed back from those near and dear to me.  Sometimes I think that there is a fine line between creativity and insanity.  So I must pause to thanks those that talk me off the crazy person ledge sometimes and give me the feed back I need to be creative and inspirational.

Over the past few months I have come to notice just how inconsiderate people can be sometimes.  I gets my blood boiling thinking about how little regard people really have for one and other these days.  I think about my great grandmother who would talk to anyone.  In line and the store she would strike up conversations, she made friends with waitresses at restaurants, and she would often remind passers by to smile.  These days I am seeing the beauty of interaction with strangers in a whole new light.  Through my child, the chatter box.  This kid.  My boy says "Hello!" to everyone he passes.  Almost completely without exception.  He's a good kid.  A kind hearted boy.  He's silly too.  

All of these things combined with his love of putting stickers in creative places made me think of an idea.  He and I would create little "Acts of Gratitude".  Notes, do dads, found objects with a message, simple notes.  Then like ninja's we would randomly place them where every we went.

Today we launched our first two.  

The first one we left tucked on a shelf at Wal-Mart.

The epicenter of where people need to be reminded of how to treat each other.

This little wedge of rubber lemon reads:

"Hey You! Pick Me!

Put a Smile on your face, and pass it on!"

The second one we left on the window sill at Howley's.

It seemed like the perfect little spot, 

camouflaged among all the magazines and fliers.

It reads:

"A gift for you! yes...you!

Life is too sweet to let the sour stuff get in the way."

I have left the Turquoise Violets 

web address on the back to see if anyone responds.

I really think that it would amazing 

(and restore a little of my hope for humanity)

if someone contacted the blog saying that they found one of these

Random Acts of Gratitude.

Be on the look out!

Be Grateful

& 

Inspire

Joys of Parenting: I love you, but I don't have to like you.

This morning I walked in on the boy about to chuck a skate board at my cowering dog.

Is it any wonder why she's starting a new regime of Prozac?

Honestly, I am not sure how I have remained Prozac free till this point!

Anyway back to the cowering dog....

In an instant I was scared for her safety,

mortified in thinking that my son might be a serial killer, 

(because I have seen every episode of Dexter, and isn't this how it all started)

and I was screaming "STOP" at the top of my lungs.

All of those emotions were wrapped up in a general feeling of WTF is going on here.

Needless to say, a time-out was in order, which was pre-ceeded by one of the boys current hobbies:

"The Balls to The Wall, I am going to Fuck Your Day UP, Mega Tantrum"

While lengthy, that is actually the official name.  This tantrum will have you pacing the kitchen wondering why people have children.  You will start thinking of all your kid-free friends, jealous of what they are doing on the sunny Friday morning.  Because what ever it is, it's got to be better than this.

After I had taken my punches and scratches, and warngled him back into his room for a "big time-out"came the onslaught of "I hate you"'s and "I want a new mom"'s.  Really kid?  What have I done wrong here? 

 I have learned that the best way for me to cope with this is to stand directly on the other side of the wall, well out of sight, and then just give him the old double bird.  That's right folks, I flick my kid off when he's not watching.  And it helps.

I then pro-ceeded to deep clean my kitchen and mop the entire house.  If you live under the Trumble roof, you know that the more vigorously I am cleaning, the more pissed I am.  There is a direct correlation.  This is when I think of all you non-breeders again.  Your damn happy hours and adult conversations. 

One 20 minute temper tantrums, and One clean house later, it all changed. 

One stinking Facebook Status turned my day around.

It dropped into my lap like a gift from above...

A sign of hope.

Word that a fellow Mommy of an almost 4 year old boy understands.  It's like she's sending me smoke signals.  It either translates: 

It's O.K!

I want to kick his ass.

or

We will be O.K!

This too shall pass.

I am not sure, I was never to good with smoke signals, or morris code for that matter, but I am pretty sure it was the latter.  Either way, I knew I wasn't alone.  Her little dude was giving her a run for her money.  And whether she realized it or not this meant that we were in it together.  She gave me hope.  We could do this. We could get passed the whole WWF dog situation.  We could start fresh with our day.  And I'll be damned if we didn't turn that B around.  

In the end I realized two things,

1.  I will always love you little boy, but I don't always have to like you.

2.  No matter how pissed you make me, you always know how to turn that around.

And hey, the silver lining, my kitchen is spotless!

Coffee Talks

"Shenanigans while he sleeps" - Jess

"I just love how beautiful and insane my little town library is." - Erin

Let's Go Geocaching!

Our family fun days seem to have a re-occuring theme...

We are Geocaching fools!

So much so that we bit the bullet and picked up the $10 app...ha.

There was another theme that I was trying to 

press on the boy.

I wanted him to spend time looking up!

While I know it's weird that I snapped this from a 

bathroom stall, the light pouring into the sky lights at high noon 

was too incredible to pass up.

So much of caching is spent staring at a compass on a digital screen,

and scouring the brush 

that we forget that so much of the wonder is happening over head.

We discovered these magical looking

mushrooms growing on a branch overhead.

I told him they reminded me of my favorite childhood movie,

FernGully....

He looked at me like I had eight heads.

note to self: rent ferngully.

If you are ever in John D. McArthur State Park,

I highly recommend the Silkleaf Trail.

It was a great little walk along the water line.

At times the trail felt a little like a jungle.

It was so lush and tropical, with that touch of 

Everglades charm.

All that rain we've had did the park well.

While I was packing up our mid hike picnic, the hubs whipped 

us up a letter "T" stamps for the cache logs.

He's used that same method I DIYed here.

It was such a wonderful, quick, 

and easy way to step up our log game! 

Can't wait for our next exploration!

Hope From Harrison

I just can't keep it in any longer! 

Please, before you read any further,

 jump on over to the Hope From Harrison website,

and read about their story!

Ok...back now?

I had the honor of volunteering with 

Hope From Harrison this past weekend,

and I was so moved by Matt & Melissa Hudson

and everything that they do to help 

children and families in need.

I instantly knew that I had to be apart of it all.

The Hudson's passion for gratitude and living every day to it's fullest

inspired and moved me in such a way that was earth shaking.

I am so excited to announce that 

The Harrison Bracelet

will be available for purchase soon!

Proceeds will go directly to the organization.

Go to their Facebook page to get more pre-order information!

Coffee Talks

"Staten Island + San Francisco = Statencisco" - Jess

"Drink Up." - Erin

Project 52

There are days when I am not sure how you became so perfect.

Then there are days where I am not sure where exactly where I went wrong.

Some how today, you managed to hit both ends of that spectrum.

I never knew that a temper tantrum could look like that.

Or that you had that much aggression built up inside of you.

But we made it through.

One day you will believe me that you still need a nap sometimes.

One day I will learn that needing MY MOM is what I still need sometimes.

Thankful Thursday

Praying before meals in something that rarely happens in this house.  It's pretty much limited to Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinners.  It's not that we don't know how, or not that we don't care to, it is really just not our practice.  Grace before every meal was something that I grew up with, and frankly grew out of.  I feel kinda terrible actually admitting that.

Upon recently enrolling the boy in a religious based VPK (because they don't offer VPK at military schools), I decided that I had better start prepping him for praying before his lunch.  His school that he will be attending come fall says a prayer before eating, does a small bible study daily, and they go to chapel once a week.  You can imagine the sudden feeling of indigestion the hubs is feeling about all of this. ha. 

But, if I was going to teach my child to "pray" before meals...it was going to be my way.  No thanking God for the food that's on the table, rather just giving "thanks" for the meal.  In short just a series of "I am thankful for...", a few from me, and a few from the boy.

So we sat to eat, and I said:

"Tonight we are going to say grace."

the boy: "Grace."

me: "No, we are going to say grace."

the boy: "Grace."

me: "Seriously, let's say grace."

the boy (now much louder and a bit  frustrated): "GRACE!!!!!"

That was when I realized that this had turned into a fun little game of "who's on first".

The point being that we did it.

I eventually realized that he had no idea what I meant by "saying grace", so I went first, and told him what I was thankful for that day.  He followed with some silly almost 4 year old ramblings about being thankful for "butts, and dogs, and poopoo caacaa", he then got THE LOOK and scraped together some appropriate things to be grateful for.

After doing this for a few days in a row it is starting to become obvious that the boy is gaining and understanding of what it actually means to be thankful as opposed to just saying "thank you".  I am teaching him young the importance of living a gracious lifestyle.  Showing him that the more gratitude that you display the happier you will be.

Teach your children to be grateful through your actions and words.  Let them follow you in expressing their thanks, and maybe the future generations will learn to live humbly instead of living with entitlement. 

For now, Happy Thankful Thursday!

Be Grateful & Inspire