What's the Opposite of the Midas Touch?

Today was not my day. The dog threw up on the carpet. Logan peed on the sofa. (Some day, I will tell the story of what a pain it has been to get him fully toilet trained, but that tale will have to wait.) I had a pomegranate catastrophe. (That video I saw a few weeks back in which the guy claimed he had an "easier" way to cut them without having to have your hands in a bowl of icy water... and I thought, must try that. Yeah, let's just say I am glad this worked for him, but it was NOT at all a good idea for me!) Did I mention it was beyond freezing and we were cooped up ALL DAY?

So, obviously, almost all the activities we tried went wrong. I don't know if there is a word for the exact opposite of the Midas Touch, but I think that is what was going on. We couldn't find the bird identification book because I wanted to set up a bird-watching basket, so of course, that would be unavailable. (Although, Mia did make some nice drawings for the cover of our bird watching notebook, so even though we can't tell what we're looking at, at least we're on the right track to having our bird-watching basket...)

I have a brand new roll of finger paint paper somewhere in the house, but it was nowhere to be found. I realized this after I got all the powdered tempera paints mixed up. I had (or attempted to make) four new paint combs (inspired by this). When I got the kids set up to paint on some brown kraft paper, Mia was excited, "Mrs. M. (the art teacher) has some of these!" Almost immediately, though, she was disappointed because my homemade version -- made from two Cool Whip lids -- just wasn't the same. I guess it's one of those "good idea in theory" moments, not a total craft-astrophe, but still it was a let-down. They eventually got the combs to make some scratchy marks in the paint, but it was pretty anticlimactic at that point.

We waited all day -- 8 hours -- for some glue to dry. This was my BIG brilliant idea for the day, the one I was sure would work. I had wanted to do some Styrofoam art prints. Instead of carving out a design like we did before, I thought we could make a relief using glue. Actually, I still think this would have worked. If only the glue hadn't flaked off from the surface of the Styrofoam after it finally dried.

It's a travesty, really. Mia had a cool snowflake design and Logan had some interesting abstract art that would have looked cool with the white paint on blue paper that I had in mind. This is the only one that sort of kind of worked out, although it looks nothing like what we were hoping for. If you squint, you can probably make out the tree and the falling snow, although who can really tell with all that other "snow" all over the sad looking print? This one definitely counts as a craft-astrophe in my book.

{"Christmas Tree" by Mia}

I know what you're probably thinking. Why didn't she just take it easy instead of trying to direct all of the activities for the day? I should probably mention that Netflix was not wanting to stream anything. And, left to their own devices, the kids created a couch cushion/blanket fort, which ordinarily would not be a problem. But once this became a "bounce house" and they were "boinging" down the "slide" repeatedly, I had had enough of that activity. Couldn't I catch a break?!

It's days like this when a mama really appreciates bedtime. So, if you need me, I'll be soaking in a hot bath with some homemade orange bath salts. And, I may also treat myself to some of our Dragonberry Bacardi. I think I've earned it.