--and then the woman depicted by chance in this photograph--
--stole the girls' blue rubber duckie. Two minutes before closing time, her little swim diaper-clad toddler ran over and grabbed up the duckie, which Willow had been happily sharing with the entire pool for two hours, from right in front of us, then ran back over and showed his mom, who nodded and kept packing up. Of course I sent Matt marching right over, but he was utterly defeated when the woman, hardly looking at him or the kid or the toy, told him her kid had brought that duck to the pool every day for four weeks and maybe we should look around more for OUR duck--I think Matt should have just grabbed the duck and ran, but he reminds me that poolsides are slippery.Seriously, what do you do when some random person brazenly steals something from you right out in public? If we'd been kids, it'd been easy--"Give me back my duck!" Bam!--but as adults we were utterly stymied when polite conversation did not allow us to achieve our goal. Seriously, this woman just would not give back that duck. So Matt had to march back with failure in his eyes, and we had to carry our hysterical child from the pool.
Don't worry--Willow feels better now, except that I keep bringing it up again to help her process. You know--"You've been sharing so well now for over four years, and only once has someone stole what you were sharing with them," etc. It's too bad, because Will really is a very generous child. Parents often compliment me, as if I had anything to do with it, and she's always giving her little buddies presents from her own toy supply. I hate it when this happens--you lovingly raise up your child with the utmost thoughtfulness and care, cultivating precious qualities in them and building up their characters, and then some idiot comes along and makes their best attempt at ruining all your work in about one minute with one ugly act or one ugly remark. You know--telling them, "Stay with your mommy, or a bad person will come and take you away," or hitting their dog right in front of them, or stealing the toy they'd brought to the pool to share for a while.
One of our family friends was with us at the pool that day, and she's a social worker, and when I asked her for her professional opinion about the situation, she thought for a minute, lips pursed, then said, "That woman has problems."
I have something that would have cheered the girls right up, of course, but I wouldn't give it to them because I am mean. The gifties inside have to wait, but my Christmas in July Stashbuster Swap angel package arrived!
You know I got bailed on by my official partner, who apparently received the ornaments I made without a word and then disappeared, but the swap organizer found two, count them TWO, people to make swap presents for me and get nothing in return--Craftster calls them swap angels. And my first swap angel package was AWESOME!
These are the veggies that my angel crocheted for me. She made a carrot, corn, peas, a tomato, and a baby eggplant/beet. I'm so excited to put these in the girls' Christmas stockings--I've made them pretty flush on felt food, but I'd really been wanting some crocheted food, as well. Now if I can only find somebody to crochet them a matching set of eggplant top knitted hats...
Because the girls also love the ocean, my angel also crocheted them some ocean life, a sea turtle and a dolphin. 
The sea turtle's shell is like a little jacket that you can take off and put back on again. A jacket, y'all--how much fun is that? A lot.
The sweetest thing, though, is that she made me and the girls matching jewelry--the black beads are all magnets, so that you can wrap the same piece around your neck a couple of times for a necklace, or around your wrist several times for a bracelet. 
Of course, the first thing I did was to wrap mine and the girls' all around my own wrist for one giant, super-bracelet. 
I'm really happy with my swap package; this turned out to be a great swap, after all. Just a couple more lovingly handcrafted items, now, and the girls' Christmas stockings will be full before November!
The book is actually pretty much a downer, with Selina and her family, Mennonites during the Civil War, having to flee to northern Canada, leaving behind dearly beloved granny, who gives Selina a quilt top as a farewell gift. In Canada at the house of relatives, Selina misses granny something terrible, but is comforted when she sees that the quilt on her strange bed contains many of the same fabrics as granny's quilts back home--the making and giving and using of quilts, they bring us together, y'all. The awesome thing about this book, though, is that the border to each illustration is an actual quilted border--I read the book through quickly, then pored over it again to steal some ideas for my own quilted borders. 
The illustrations for this book are off the hook. The story is a German folk tale, but the illustrations are all close-ups of sections of this ginormous awesome quilt that a very gifted artist made to retell the story. Seriously, off the hook. Willow warmed my heart when we were looking at this book together by saying, "Momma, let's us make this quilt today." God, the child has no concept of reality.
It may surprise you to know that I am a lousy gardener. Lousy. I have no patience, no tendency to follow rules, no strategy for labelling what I've planted, no regular system of watering, and when it first starts to get really hot outside, I'm done. Our yard looks like crap. But I can change, I tell you, I can change. With lasagna gardening, I can change. 
This book might be a little hip and industrial for my tastes (how many loaves of beer bread would it take to make their beer can room divider?), but I always love the possibilities inherent in ReadyMade's designs, and their recycling methodology can't be beat.
Blueberry-oatmeal muffins and a SECOND cup of coffee made for me by Matt and the girls, with only a minimal amount of yelling during and a fair amount of clean-up afterwards:
Lots and lots of children's artsy projects at home while Matt played a softball double-header in the mugginess across town. Tempera paint in gallon jugs, we hail you:
Prior to the bath...
Several hours of crafting, for the first time in a few days. I can tell when I've really needed the crafting time, because instead of watching streaming Netflix on the computer while I work, I just... work. Silently. Breathing...
Resulting in no fewer than TWELVE quilt tops, soon to be quilted into wall hangings, destined, hopefully, for future lives with some 
Another garage sale purchase today, another 50 cents! This one shows rounded bindings, pieced bindings, pleats, points--you name it.
This gift from my partner in the Bargain Hunter's swap has me pretty stoked by its section on rug-making. I've been considering making a rag rug from denim or old T-shirts...
I really like the clarity of the definitions and instruction in this book, particularly, again, for bindings. 
I'm still too dumb for the more advanced instructions in here, but I'm totally making the sewn holiday cards.
First rainy day, the girls and I are going to make these rag dolls and doll clothes all freakin' day long. 
Hmmm...Should I make a loft bed with a slide or a smocked sundress? 
Okay, her taste is a little tacky, but man, does she know her way around a shortcut.
The section on how to perform a play (Kind of a craft, sort of? Um, no) includes a photo of a small child with a cigar in his mouth and a Budweiser can in his hand. Awesome.
You know what they think you can do in a weekend, women? A needlepoint lion. A stained glass lampshade. A hanging planter. A stuffed clown head for the nursery.
There are all kinds of interesting questions and discussions to bring up here, inspired by artwork from various periods, dealing with what's depicted, the physical environment of its creation, authorial intention as well as viewer response, and metaphors and symbols. A little advanced for my lot, but still. 
These are more guerilla than crafty, asking you to do things like hang your own work of art someplace where people will think it's supposed to be, like a motel room or museum bathroom or apartment foyer, but the projects are inspirational and deal tenderly with one's memories. I totally should, for instance, photocopy all my college best friend's letters and mail them back to him, annotated. 
Pikachu is on the other side of his ornament, of course.
