Goodbye?

Directly after posting this, my Matt will be reformatting my computer. He got the internet to work again after reinstalling the driver, changing the wi-fi to a different channel (he thinks), and reinstalling the software. After an entire day of sitting on his butt in front of my computer reading magazines while reinstalling all my software, we discovered that my photo editing software no longer recognizes my camera software, and my graphic design software won't correctly install at all. So Matt downloaded all the Windows updates (which he reinstalled Windows to get rid of yesterday, suspecting that might be why my internet wasn't working), futzed some more, and has decided that reformatting the computer is really the best idea.

Did any of you ever watch Home Improvement on cable? They should totally remake that show with a geek husband instead of a carpenter.

In other news (since I can't download to my computer or upload to you any photos of what I've been up to), I wish you would check out, if you're crafty-minded, the editorial I wrote for Crafting a Green World this morning about how one of the etsy teams I'm a member of, Team Craftivism, recently had itself declared by the leadership a left-wing political group. I'm a big nerd so I'm mostly concerned that the team name no longer accurately represents the team, but the debate over my post there has gotten, um, quite heated, and I'd love to hear your opinion of the whole business.

Reminds me of the wool versus acrylic incident that I started a few months ago.

I am possibly an "inciter."

I Heart Obama

I just can't get enough of the Obama love--I've been all amped up for this inauguration since the election, and all amped up for the election since the primaries, and I'm so used to the anticipation that, except for a couple of moments in the car (moments in the car are occasionally peaceful, unlike the rest of my life) when I felt such relief at having a sane, intelligent, and compassionate person finally in charge around here, I've been a little twitchy today.

Is that, perhaps, why I've spent the past half hour not grading papers, nor working up tomorrow's lesson plans, nor emailing some very boring emails, but creating a bunch of Obamicons? Um...yeah.

The girls spent the morning out on one last adventure with their grandparents, but they arrived back home in time to witness one small moment in history with me:
Thank goodness for autofocus, because Momma was crying too much for manual.

P.S. Check out my post for other fun DIY Obama stuff over at Crafting a Green World.

Busy Little Elves

It's been a season of bounty the last couple of days, with everything coming in stacks and piles of multiples.

A stack of papers graded and alphabetized, ready to hand out in my last class tonight:Four dozen chocolate chip cookies, to be awarded to my students in exchange for their final papers:

A long line of tiny little record boxes in the making, to be filled with beads and string for a charity project in Will's preschool classroom:

An orderly arrangement of dinosaur cut-outs, salt dough shapes, and popsicle sticks, drying after an exhuberant acrylic painting session:

Tomorrow will bring more of the same, with stacks of tiny little envelopes to cut out and glue and sheets of homemade temporary tattoos to print and cut out, also for Will's charity project, and a heap of candy to stick with mounds of frosting onto a gingerbread house, while visiting with a good friend.

Tonight, though...tonight, after my final class lets out, we have tickets to the IU basketball game. Who are they playing? Why, my alma mater.

Riff ram!

P.S. Check out my twin tutes--a tutorial for kitschy Christmas record album cover ornaments on Crafting a Green World, and a tutorial for kitschy Christmas record album cover sewing cards on Eco Child's Play.

Caps, Caps, and Caps

For days now, I have had this kind of crazy headache that also makes me feel like I am sort of observing everything, but not really connecting with it, like I'm just sort of visiting inside my skin--pending psychotic break? Brain tumor? I dunno, but I can sure tell you that I haven't been the life of the last couple of parties I've been to.

That being said, this weekend, excruciating headache and psychotic break and all, I've still been to a couple of parties, and a soap-making workshop where I met an awesome blog friend and bought some lye, and I've read a hundred picturebooks to little girls and fed them soup and oatmeal and macaroni & cheese, and graded homework, and made caps. And more caps. A lot of caps, really. Is that another symptom of a pending psychotic break?

I started making caps inspired by SouleMama's Mama to Mama site, which is collecting newborn caps for safe birthing kits to give to moms in Haiti, and remembering both a simple little cap pattern I made up when Syd was small, and a stash of jersey tubes given to me by a friend I met at a craft fair, I sewed up these ones for Haiti while Syd napped and Willow wrote up a list of friends to invite to a party (Planning theoretical parties is a hobby of hers), often consulting me on spelling tips ("Does Owyn's name start with a blue letter or a purple one?" Hmmm): They were so easy that I figured I'd use up the rest of my stash of jersey tubes--yay, stash-busting!--so I sewed up some more blank ones for future baby gifts:I can always embroider them in about a minute for a nice, quick gift.

With the scraps I sewed Syd up some doll caps and I experimented by making a cap for myself (Note: This style is NOT attractive on the average adult head). I had much better luck with the black jersey knit: I figured Haitian moms or my mom-friends might not appreciate the stylish chique of a black baby cap as much as I do, so I instead freezer paper-stencilled some dinos on the black ones I made to put up a little later in my etsy shop: Here they are just chilling out on the towel bar in the bathroom while the fabric paint dries, but nonetheless, I'm kind of stoked by their awesomeness.

Of course, though, the whole point of any crafty excursion is to Make. Stuff. For. My. Girls. So yeah, they got caps. Caps to wear inside while rockin' the Goodwill Outlet Store marble maze with Dadda.

Caps with freezer paper stencils of every little girl's favorite things: ponies and dinosaurs.Little girls in pony caps and little girls in dino caps: do they totally slay you, or what?

P.S. Check out my post about the Caps for Cap-Haitien project over at Crafting a Green World.