Happy FriYAY: Green Flashlights + Trying To Do More By Doing Less

When it comes to our home, I’ve got too many ideas for my own good. I have plans upon plans and I can’t wait to do all of them!

And then I start more projects than I can finish or document.

Which is why, as of last week, I started winnowing my list of current projects down. My goal is to have max four projects at once, and that’s including anything that involves things coming into our home, from the One Room Challenge (see yesterday’s post) to Benji’s “green flashlight” Halloween costume (more on that below).

And since I often like to take on a “quick” project here and there, that makes my practical max three projects, so that I can occasionally have a fourth one.

That is so hard for me to type and it’s even harder to turn those words into action. At first I wasn’t sure if this was possible, but then after a few days of working to clear my plate of other projects, I started to feel relieved at the idea of doing fewer things.

Originally, my one room challenge room was going to be the powder room. Since we rent and it’s a fairly new house, I wouldn’t need to replace any major pieces, it would just be a decor refresh, which would keep the costs down.

Here’s one of the mood boards I made for the powder room:

At the same time, I was hoping to put up wallpaper in Benji’s room towards the end of October.

Looking back at this plan now, it was crazy and totally unrealistic. I’m so glad these two projects have turned into one project by doing Benji’s room for the One Room Challenge.

Earlier I mentioned Benji’s green flashlight costume. You may be wondering, does she mean Green Lantern? No, I do not.

Denis was reading Benji a book about Halloween earlier this month and asked Benji what he wanted to be. Benji said “a green flashlight.”

Is it possible that Benji thought Denis was asking “what do you want?” Yes, definitely a possibility. But I love the idea of helping him be something that’s such a big deal to him right now. (He loves flashlights. Even though he has his own from a LovEvery kit, he only wants to use our emergency flashlights. Also, he told me that the classroom with slightly older kids at his old preschool had a green flashlight.)

Last year, Benji was a bird for Halloween because at the time we thought his first word was “bird.” We now realize he said his first word (“packpack” a.ka. backpack) a few months earlier, but whenever I see a picture of him in his bird costume, I’ll remember what a big deal birds were to him at this time and how excited we were (especially me) to be able to understand him and help him develop his interest in something.

I bought him some green pajamas and I’m planning to pick up some green felt for the collar of the flashlight that will go around his waste in sort of an A-line skirt shape. If the felt needs more structure, I’ll glue it to a large “cone of shame” dog collar. On his tummy I’m planning to put a white oval and a smaller black oval on one side of that to look like a switch that could be pushed up or down to turn the light on and off. Ideally, we’ll have fairy lights or something like that to light up under the collar/skirt. My plan is to do all of this with pretty much no sewing. Wish me luck!