Stay The Course

So last month when it was Father’s Day, I made these accordion memory books for both my grandpas. What I did not tell you is that I kind of got in trouble for using some things in those accordion memory books without asking any permissions and I wound getting called out by my mom and also a little by my big brother, Josh.

You see, when I sewed the booklets into the accordion memory books, I didn’t want to use plain old ordinary thread because that just wouldn’t look good and plus it could break pretty easy, so I used dental floss. Here’s what happened.

When my mom went to brush her teeth a couple days later, she could only get a little bit of dental floss out of the container and she thought that was weirdy weird because she only just bought that container a couple weeks earlier. When she examined the container way close, she saw there really was zero zip dental floos in the container but instead of thinking the dental floss maker shorted her on dental floss, my mom did some investigating of her own first.

“Missy,” my mom asked, “I just ran out of dental floss and that’s a mystery in light of the fact I bought this dental floss brand new two weeks ago. Do you know anything about this?”

I did but until she asked, I didn’t realize maybe using dental floss to sew the booklets into the accordion memory books was good for the accordion memory books but not so good for people that maybe wanted to floss their teeth if there was hardly any dental floss left over. I mean I didn’t realize until then that maybe I used a lot of floss and forgot to let my mom know.

So I fessed up and told my mom that I borrowed her dental floss and explained why I needed it for something that had zero zip to do with cleaning teeth. My mom listened but I could tell she wasn’t impressed I did not ask permissions first before using the dental floss on my surprises (I think she was impressed about the idea of how come I needed dental floss for the accordion memory books though).

“Missy,” my mom said, “you need to learn to ask before using other people’s stuff.”

“But mom,” I said back, “dental floss is supposed to be for everyone in the family and I’m part of everyone, right, and I needed the dental floss. I just didn’t need it for my teeth. I needed it for my surprises.”

“Yes, I understand you wanted to use dental floss for your Father’s Day surprises but you didn’t ask first,” my mom said seriously. “You don’t need to ask permission if you use something the way it’s meant to be used, but when it comes to you and your creativity, you always have to remember to ask first.”

She was right, of course, and I knew better except sometimes I”m on a creative roll and I just don’t remember to ask first because I want to keep on with being successful with what I’m making.

“You’ll have to replace the dental floss with money from your allowance or by doing extra chores,” my mom told me just as Josh walked into the room.

“Extra chores?” Josh joked. “Missy has extra chores to do? How come?”

“You mind your own business, Josh,” my mom told my big brother, but I figured maybe if I told Josh, he maybe might help me with my problem.

“Mom says because I used the dental floss for the superly great gifts I made for Grandpa Barrett and Grandpa Two Rivers for Father’s Day that I have to replace it,” I said quickly before my mom could stop me from saying it.

“Sounds like you got yourself in trouble again,” Josh laughed.

“I was thinking maybe Josh could take me to see Dr. Dentine tomorrow,” I suggested to my mom.

“Why? You got a tooth ache?” Josh asked.

“No, but you know, when we go to see Dr. Dentine, he always sends us back home with new toothbrushes and some dental floss, so I was thinking –“

“Uh, Missy,” Josh interrupted, “you know that’s kind of not what mom expects you to do to replace that floss you used in your project.”

“But Josh,” I insisted, “Dr. Dentine has lots and lots of dental floss and he just gives it away so if we ask him for some extra floss –“

“He’ll think you’ve been brushing and flossing your teeth way more than you’ve been doing,” Josh butted back in.

“Ya, but he doesn’t know that and besides, I always have superly fantastic great dental visits, so nobody gets hurt if I just ask him for a extra container of dental floss,” I pointed out.

“Missy Barrett,” my mom said in that voice that lets me know I’m about to get into way more trouble than I’m already in, “if I find out you replaced the dental floss you used by not telling the truth, you are going to experience a world of hurt known as getting grounded!”

“But mom, it’s not like I’d be lying!”

“You wouldn’t be telling the truth, would you?” she asked.

“But I wouldn’t be lying either!”

Josh snickered.

“You know, if you aren’t telling the truth, technically you’re lying, Missy. It’s called lying by omission and if someone does that to a police officer or in a court room, that’s going to land them in a lot of hot water,” Josh explained. “If you don’t correct the misconception your omitted fact creates, you could wind up in jail, too.”

I was shocked. I had never heard of that before.

“And you know,” Josh continued with a grin, “if you wind up in jail, you can probably kiss your dream of being a private eye undercover supersleath detective good-bye.”

Anyway, this weekend, my mom made me be in charge of all the set-up and clean-up for the big barbeque we’re having at out place. There’s going to be boatloads of stuff to do because this time Grandma and Grandpa Barrett are coming over and Grandma and Grandpa Two Rivers are coming over and Roy is coming over plus Aaron and Josh are going to be there including my mom and me.

That’s going to be a lot of set-up and clean-up for me, but it’s worth it so I can replace the dental floss I used and also not put my undercover private eye supersleuth detective future in danger. So even though I’ll probably be counting plates and cutlery, and even though I’ll probably wind up counting twenty, twenty one, I’ll be remembering that’s also the year we’re in.

A Brand New Art Challenge

My mom came up with the greatest idea ever that uses words and art together at the same time, and she made me a challenge I decided I was going to take her up on. She’s giving me zero zip days to get my drawing chops warmed up (that’s what she said and I’m not making that up) and she said I could confer (that was the word my mom used) with Josh and Aaron if I got stuck on the work prompt of the day she’s going to give me every single day for 31 days.  I think maybe she got inspired by Jake Parker’s Inktober challenge me and Josh did in October last year.

Now I’m not thinking this is going to be like doing Inktober like I did in October because Inktober you get to do whatever drawing you want to fit the prompt word and sometimes you can kind of go pretty far off script. But this challenge the art has to stay on script or the word prompt isn’t going to make sense so that means no puns for me when I do this challenge.

I just hope I can make it to the end of 31 days and have 31 art words that check off the word prompt list my mom’s making up for me.

I’m going to ask her if I also can ask Grandpa Barrett for ideas and Grandpa Two Rivers because sometimes they have the best ideas that even Josh and Aaron never would have come up with in the first place. I hope she says YES because if she says NO I’m stuck with whatever I come up with and what Josh and Aaron come up with and sometimes we not so good at coming up with stuff even together.

I kind of like challenges like that because it really makes me exercise my brains a lot especially when I can’t come up with a way to make it so the check mark goes in the box for that day’s challenge. Sometimes it’s crazy hard to figure out how to make the prompt word work the right way. Sometimes it’s not so hard, but sometimes it’s superly hard and probably you know what I mean.

I told my mom she had to come up with a name for her challenge and she’s calling it Missy’s March Madness and I think that’s a great name for it. It would be better if she came up with this idea at beginning of March but she did not, but it’s still March so it still works for me even if we don’t start for a two or three more days yet.

Anyway, I talked with Aaron already about this and he said he’s okay with helping me but only if I really, honestly, truly, absolutely can prove to him I tried to come up with something that would work. I said, “How do I do that?” and he said, “You have a list of ideas you came up with in your detective notepad for me to look at, and you better have a way to explain to me how you thought maybe those ideas could work but didn’t.”

That makes sense to me, so I said okay to that.

Maybe if you’re interested, you can be part of Missy’s March Madness and draw the word art prompt every day just like me, and then you can maybe share it on my Facebook page so everybody can see what you came up with and for sure, whatever you come up with, it will not be what I’m coming up with because everybody has different brains and plus not Josh and Aaron for brothers.

So get your pencils and papers ready for Missy’s March Madness, and let’s start making more art — this time using words in the art. I can hardly wait to see what everybody comes up with for this challenge.

I’m going to make a Facebook event page for this so everyone can be part of it. When I do, I hope you share it with everybody you know on social media.  Keep your eyes out for this art because that’s for sure how you’re going to know you’re on the right Facebook event page.