I am blogging a LOT for Green Options this month. I am sewing the perfect fancy outfits for myself and my girls. I am going through hell trying to find an acceptable non-nursing bra for the first time in five years (when you become a 34F, many conventional bra-shopping avenues are now closed to you). I am catching up with old friends via Facebook. I am not, apparently, catching up on my email correspondence (seriously, if you want to hear from people, you should join Facebook). I am planning some activities to do while we're in California (I'm pretty sure that yes, I CAN just go to Pebble Beach every day). I am deciding what I want for my birthday:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
a 
Monday, July 20, 2009
Make My Felt Menagerie
Tonight is the Conor Oberst concert, which means I have to track down what my friend Molly so earthily calls my "booby shirt," and put together dinner and a movie to take over to the dear mom friend I have coerced into babysitting for me tonight (she has a newborn, so I figure she'd be up late anyway). This is also our last full week in town before our California trip, so I also have to make outfits for me and the girls to wear to a wedding we'll be attending, which will mean altering my dressmaker's dummy and possibly buying the girls matching baby blue Dr. Martens AND trying once again to convince Matt to get his ill-fitting cheap suit altered, and I need to find someone to catsit and take care of the garden while we're gone, AND the girls' birthday party is on Sunday so I need to make some party favors and put together a game or two, not to even mention the lesson plans I should be prepping for my cloth diapering class this Saturday or the fall semester which starts next month...
This is all to explain why the girls and I have been doing none of that, but instead have been using stencils to make an elaborate felt menagerie for their felt board:
You can use any kind of one-piece stencil that you already have, or you can make your own stencils from good profile or silhouette images from books. Scan them as black-and-white documents at a really high contrast and at the width/height that you want, then print them at fast draft resolution to save ink and cut them out. Or you can feel free to copy and print my horse--
--or my wren:
Once you have the stencil cut out of paper, it's a straightforward matter to trace the pattern onto a piece of recycled acrylic felt with a fine-tipped Sharpie, then cut it out with your smallest pair of sewing scissors. At five, Will is able to trace a pretty passable horse all by her ownself: 
You can also, clearly, color these felt guys with the Sharpies: 
I haven't tried anything else, like fabric paint or acrylic paint, but I imagine they would work, as well.
My goal is to make a few sets of a bunch of animals in different colors and sizes, good for color matching or color ordering, size matching or size ordering, grouping by type of animal, or just, you know, playing, but I found the tracing and cutting actually kind of tedious, so it's a project that I think I'll need to save for some movie-watching sessions. It was an engrossing project for the girls, however, and I didn't anticipate how much they'd enjoy decorating the felt shapes:
And they're braver than me, because although I tend to stick to stencils, they'll venture into some freehand work if they, for instance, decide that they need a horseback rider for their horse: 
This is all to explain why the girls and I have been doing none of that, but instead have been using stencils to make an elaborate felt menagerie for their felt board:
You can use any kind of one-piece stencil that you already have, or you can make your own stencils from good profile or silhouette images from books. Scan them as black-and-white documents at a really high contrast and at the width/height that you want, then print them at fast draft resolution to save ink and cut them out. Or you can feel free to copy and print my horse--
--or my wren:
Once you have the stencil cut out of paper, it's a straightforward matter to trace the pattern onto a piece of recycled acrylic felt with a fine-tipped Sharpie, then cut it out with your smallest pair of sewing scissors. At five, Will is able to trace a pretty passable horse all by her ownself: You can also, clearly, color these felt guys with the Sharpies: I haven't tried anything else, like fabric paint or acrylic paint, but I imagine they would work, as well.My goal is to make a few sets of a bunch of animals in different colors and sizes, good for color matching or color ordering, size matching or size ordering, grouping by type of animal, or just, you know, playing, but I found the tracing and cutting actually kind of tedious, so it's a project that I think I'll need to save for some movie-watching sessions. It was an engrossing project for the girls, however, and I didn't anticipate how much they'd enjoy decorating the felt shapes:
And they're braver than me, because although I tend to stick to stencils, they'll venture into some freehand work if they, for instance, decide that they need a horseback rider for their horse: 
Okay, now to go find the booby shirt.
UPDATE: While writing this, and listening to Outer South on iTunes, I got a Ticketmaster alert that my Conor Oberst concert has been CANCELLED!!! Sadness, despair, unhappiness, disgruntledness!
And Conor Oberst would have liked my booby shirt SO much.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Five on Wheels
It's barely been twelve hours, but let me tell you, five is shaping up to possibly be my favorite age yet.
At five, my girl likes soccer:
She likes soccer more than I'll probably like it when these young British coaches go back to professional soccer playing in London (have I said it before? British accents + athleticism + early 20s + caring attitude towards small children = swoon), and she definitely likes soccer more than her little sister does: 
Insert sounds of crickets chirping here.
At five, my girl may not necessarily have a lot of grace: 
But she does have wheels: 
And I mean WHEELS: 
And she's learned how to soak the coach? 
Insert sounds of crickets chirping here.
At five, my girl may not necessarily have a lot of grace:But she does have wheels:And I mean WHEELS:And she's learned how to soak the coach?I dunno, Matt claims it's a legitimate thing, and he's the parent who was actually in organized sports as a youth, so I guess he'd know...
Cherishing a little kid, especially a roughneck little girl in a handmade 5 shirt and the proud owner of four pet tadpoles--it's a recipe for getting your heart broken every single day of your life:
But in a good way, you know?
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Almost Her Birthday
Before soccer on Monday morning, I could find only one ponytail ring. Much consternation ensued among all present members of the household, all of whom wished to be in possession of said ponytail ring, until I finally decreed that it go to Willow, who has the curliest, floppiest hair of the three of us.
After soccer practice, I went downstairs to throw the girls' soccer shirts into the washing machine, along with some pants, shorts, socks, stuffed animals, Batman costumes--you know, laundry. I walked back upstairs then, as I crossed the living room, I spied Willow leading Sydney gently by the shoulders over to the mirror on the inside door of our linen closet.
"There, now," she was saying to Sydney, "Now you don't need a ponytail ever."
I called Matt to come home for lunch, then grabbed a beer and a magazine--do you ever feel the need to just disconnect, lest you say or do something that your children would feel the need to mention in therapy a couple of decades later? I loved that baby's hair.
The barber that Matt took Sydney to called her a silly goose and refused to even try to cut it all even--see this cropped part right here, for instance?
Yeah, that's the top of her head. So now Sydney's my funky-banged, big-eyed, crooked-hair baby.
In other news, ignoring it won't make it go away--Willow is going to be five years old tomorrow. Add to that the fact that my Sydney hasn't nursed since LAST FRIDAY, and I am just about to squeeze them both to my ample bosoms and commence a-weeping. It actually does help with the hyper-emotionalism that they've been SO naughty this week. I am not kidding you, today I walked into the nursery to find Willow hanging her naked butt out the window, actively trying to pee into a plastic grocery sack that Sydney was standing outside, underneath the window, holding.
W. T. F? Can you even punish that? I mean, we don't have a specific rule in place or anything, but seriously!
A couple of days ago I taught the girls how to use our salad spinner and some acrylic paints to martial the force that is centrifugal force in the pursuit of art (we got the original idea for salad spinner invitations from Chasing Cheerios, and then we modified it to more closely match the messiness that is us), and then I decoupaged onto the backs of them, and thus we have our birthday party invitations:
They're postcards, so the address will go on that white cardstock square, and then the stamp will go above it. I hate that stash scrapbook paper, which came in a pack of some cool paper, because it mentions meat a whole bunch, and so I was happy that it sort of fit the theme of our party, the Picnic Party. Goodbye, nasty paper.
Willow's real gift was Walking with Dinosaurs Live, which coincidentally also blew our entire birthday budget, but I think we can put together a nice little party for a few kid friends using only stash, and keeping the food much more simple than we've done at past birthday parties. Will also knows not to expect any other presents (other than the $30 grandma-induced shopping spree she'll have tomorrow at Learning Treasures, at least), but I think I can whip up something thematically appropriate from this:
That will hopefully go nicely with the five buttons my big girl will be wearing on her birthday crown tomorrow.
After soccer practice, I went downstairs to throw the girls' soccer shirts into the washing machine, along with some pants, shorts, socks, stuffed animals, Batman costumes--you know, laundry. I walked back upstairs then, as I crossed the living room, I spied Willow leading Sydney gently by the shoulders over to the mirror on the inside door of our linen closet.
"There, now," she was saying to Sydney, "Now you don't need a ponytail ever."
I called Matt to come home for lunch, then grabbed a beer and a magazine--do you ever feel the need to just disconnect, lest you say or do something that your children would feel the need to mention in therapy a couple of decades later? I loved that baby's hair.
The barber that Matt took Sydney to called her a silly goose and refused to even try to cut it all even--see this cropped part right here, for instance?
Yeah, that's the top of her head. So now Sydney's my funky-banged, big-eyed, crooked-hair baby.
In other news, ignoring it won't make it go away--Willow is going to be five years old tomorrow. Add to that the fact that my Sydney hasn't nursed since LAST FRIDAY, and I am just about to squeeze them both to my ample bosoms and commence a-weeping. It actually does help with the hyper-emotionalism that they've been SO naughty this week. I am not kidding you, today I walked into the nursery to find Willow hanging her naked butt out the window, actively trying to pee into a plastic grocery sack that Sydney was standing outside, underneath the window, holding.
W. T. F? Can you even punish that? I mean, we don't have a specific rule in place or anything, but seriously!
A couple of days ago I taught the girls how to use our salad spinner and some acrylic paints to martial the force that is centrifugal force in the pursuit of art (we got the original idea for salad spinner invitations from Chasing Cheerios, and then we modified it to more closely match the messiness that is us), and then I decoupaged onto the backs of them, and thus we have our birthday party invitations:
They're postcards, so the address will go on that white cardstock square, and then the stamp will go above it. I hate that stash scrapbook paper, which came in a pack of some cool paper, because it mentions meat a whole bunch, and so I was happy that it sort of fit the theme of our party, the Picnic Party. Goodbye, nasty paper.Willow's real gift was Walking with Dinosaurs Live, which coincidentally also blew our entire birthday budget, but I think we can put together a nice little party for a few kid friends using only stash, and keeping the food much more simple than we've done at past birthday parties. Will also knows not to expect any other presents (other than the $30 grandma-induced shopping spree she'll have tomorrow at Learning Treasures, at least), but I think I can whip up something thematically appropriate from this:
That will hopefully go nicely with the five buttons my big girl will be wearing on her birthday crown tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Vinyl of the Weird and the Awesome
I know, I know--all I do is talk about vinyl records. Obsessions are healthy, though, right?
Um, right?
And what with our family's inability to do away with any record that isn't completely scratched into oblivion (in heavy rotation on our current playlist--a scratchy record consisting solely of wolf calls), and the fact that I need a whole new batch of record bowls for my farmer's market craft fair every month, AND the fact that I'm doing Strange Folk again this fall (yay!) and will need a whole new big batch of bowls for that, I'm already starting to freak out that I don't have enough vinyl to get me through to October and free day at the Red Cross Book Fair.
That being said, since I'm skipping out on the August farmer's market craft fair, I've got a little extra time this month to make some undies for the girls, applique them some shirts, alter a couple of dresses for myself, sew buttons back on Matt's pants (what is it with that man and buttons?), and update my pumpkinbear etsy shop with some of these record bowls I've been slaving over. Along with, you know, making spin art and very large maps with the girls and eating lots of tomato-bread salad and visiting the library every single wet day and Bryan Park pool every single dry day. I'm busy, you know?
I generally only make record bowls out of albums that are not only too scratched to play but that are also albums that I, personally, think are awesome--awesome awesome or awful awesome, doesn't matter, but it has to be something that I really dig. So when you visit my booth you get a lot of eighties stuff, soundtracks, children's music, esoteric junk, heavy metal--basically a soundtrack of my life as I know it to this point. Here are some of my very favorite favorites that I put on my pumpkinbear etsy shop today:
The best thing about this record, all Santa songs, is that I recognize, oh, ONE of them. Seriously, how many Santa songs are there in the world? Although, some of these do look pretty forgettable--The Weatherman's Christmas Prayer? Ech.
Sweet Caroline. 'Nuff said. Okay, but have you ever heard the Langley Schools Music Project cover of Sweet Caroline? Also awesome. And their cover of Space Oddity.
The album says it's the Flintstones, but it doesn't include the theme song or anything as a track, and unfortunately the vinyl was too damaged for me to play at all to figure out what's going on here, so I just have in my head this idea that for this album, they got together all the voices of the Flintstones characters, and made them sing all these random songs in character? Like the Brady Bunch? Or in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, when the guy gets up to do his song from Dracula the Musical, and he does it in a Transylvanian accent? Which made me laugh so hard I woke the babies.
I'm a sucker for soundtracks in general, although Annie Get Your Gun isn't one of my favorites. Whenever I see it, however, I always flash back to watching Soleil Moon Frye on Carson or something as a kid, promo-ing Punky Brewster, which I LOVED (the episode when one kid got trapped in a refrigerator and Punky had to do CPR? Priceless), and Carson asks her how she got her name, and she's all, "It's from Annie Get Your Gun--'I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.'"
In other news, the girlies have been rocking themselves some British Soccer Camp this week--these guys who play professional soccer in England for some reason spend part of their summer here in Bloomington, and they teach soccer to the baby townies. I already mentioned this on my Facebook, but my absolute favorite thing about British soccer camp is the athletic young men with British accents playfully and nurturingly interacting with small children. Swoon?
Swoon. Not the best photo, mind you, but my Syd, she's not too team-oriented, and this is about the billionth time that one of the coaches loped over to where Sydney had wandered off and jollied her back to the group--lots of "Come on, love," etc.
My least favorite thing about soccer camp is my introduction to Soccer Mom. Soccer Mom sits next to me when my mom friend doesn't show up one day. We're sitting against the gym wall in the REALLY crowded gym because it's storming outside, so with the noise of the storm on the metal roof, the noise of four soccer teams all playing different games on basketball court, the noise of the YMCA day camps over on the other court, and the generic noise of the random people working out in the Y to begin with, it's deafening in there. And yet, for the entire hour, Soccer Mom sideline coaches her kid. The WHOLE hour. I read the same sentence in my book about one thousand times.
But the weirdest thing is, there's no way her soccer kid could have heard a thing she said. She was talking in a loud conversational tone, I guess--the kid could have heard her from that distance if we'd been in the library, but the crowded gym? Not a chance. Nor, of course, did he acknowledge or respond to any of her admonitions--he couldn't hear her, you know. But still she kept it up, this constant patter, and even though he couldn't hear her, it was really loud in MY ear--everything from "That's great, buddy, run! Oops, you lost your ball, go get it, now run! Yay, good job!" to "Sit up, buddy! Keep your hands to yourself! No, no, get away from the orange cone! Hurry, find your spot!"
W. T. F?
Fortunately, Willow went from resolutely sitting on her soccer ball and picking clover for the whole hour on Monday to being all soccer, all the time by the end of the hour on Tuesday:
Um, right?
And what with our family's inability to do away with any record that isn't completely scratched into oblivion (in heavy rotation on our current playlist--a scratchy record consisting solely of wolf calls), and the fact that I need a whole new batch of record bowls for my farmer's market craft fair every month, AND the fact that I'm doing Strange Folk again this fall (yay!) and will need a whole new big batch of bowls for that, I'm already starting to freak out that I don't have enough vinyl to get me through to October and free day at the Red Cross Book Fair.
That being said, since I'm skipping out on the August farmer's market craft fair, I've got a little extra time this month to make some undies for the girls, applique them some shirts, alter a couple of dresses for myself, sew buttons back on Matt's pants (what is it with that man and buttons?), and update my pumpkinbear etsy shop with some of these record bowls I've been slaving over. Along with, you know, making spin art and very large maps with the girls and eating lots of tomato-bread salad and visiting the library every single wet day and Bryan Park pool every single dry day. I'm busy, you know?
I generally only make record bowls out of albums that are not only too scratched to play but that are also albums that I, personally, think are awesome--awesome awesome or awful awesome, doesn't matter, but it has to be something that I really dig. So when you visit my booth you get a lot of eighties stuff, soundtracks, children's music, esoteric junk, heavy metal--basically a soundtrack of my life as I know it to this point. Here are some of my very favorite favorites that I put on my pumpkinbear etsy shop today:
The best thing about this record, all Santa songs, is that I recognize, oh, ONE of them. Seriously, how many Santa songs are there in the world? Although, some of these do look pretty forgettable--The Weatherman's Christmas Prayer? Ech.
Sweet Caroline. 'Nuff said. Okay, but have you ever heard the Langley Schools Music Project cover of Sweet Caroline? Also awesome. And their cover of Space Oddity.
The album says it's the Flintstones, but it doesn't include the theme song or anything as a track, and unfortunately the vinyl was too damaged for me to play at all to figure out what's going on here, so I just have in my head this idea that for this album, they got together all the voices of the Flintstones characters, and made them sing all these random songs in character? Like the Brady Bunch? Or in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, when the guy gets up to do his song from Dracula the Musical, and he does it in a Transylvanian accent? Which made me laugh so hard I woke the babies.
I'm a sucker for soundtracks in general, although Annie Get Your Gun isn't one of my favorites. Whenever I see it, however, I always flash back to watching Soleil Moon Frye on Carson or something as a kid, promo-ing Punky Brewster, which I LOVED (the episode when one kid got trapped in a refrigerator and Punky had to do CPR? Priceless), and Carson asks her how she got her name, and she's all, "It's from Annie Get Your Gun--'I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.'"
In other news, the girlies have been rocking themselves some British Soccer Camp this week--these guys who play professional soccer in England for some reason spend part of their summer here in Bloomington, and they teach soccer to the baby townies. I already mentioned this on my Facebook, but my absolute favorite thing about British soccer camp is the athletic young men with British accents playfully and nurturingly interacting with small children. Swoon?
Swoon. Not the best photo, mind you, but my Syd, she's not too team-oriented, and this is about the billionth time that one of the coaches loped over to where Sydney had wandered off and jollied her back to the group--lots of "Come on, love," etc.
My least favorite thing about soccer camp is my introduction to Soccer Mom. Soccer Mom sits next to me when my mom friend doesn't show up one day. We're sitting against the gym wall in the REALLY crowded gym because it's storming outside, so with the noise of the storm on the metal roof, the noise of four soccer teams all playing different games on basketball court, the noise of the YMCA day camps over on the other court, and the generic noise of the random people working out in the Y to begin with, it's deafening in there. And yet, for the entire hour, Soccer Mom sideline coaches her kid. The WHOLE hour. I read the same sentence in my book about one thousand times.
But the weirdest thing is, there's no way her soccer kid could have heard a thing she said. She was talking in a loud conversational tone, I guess--the kid could have heard her from that distance if we'd been in the library, but the crowded gym? Not a chance. Nor, of course, did he acknowledge or respond to any of her admonitions--he couldn't hear her, you know. But still she kept it up, this constant patter, and even though he couldn't hear her, it was really loud in MY ear--everything from "That's great, buddy, run! Oops, you lost your ball, go get it, now run! Yay, good job!" to "Sit up, buddy! Keep your hands to yourself! No, no, get away from the orange cone! Hurry, find your spot!"
W. T. F?
Fortunately, Willow went from resolutely sitting on her soccer ball and picking clover for the whole hour on Monday to being all soccer, all the time by the end of the hour on Tuesday:
She is particularly good at a little tracking game they play called Cats and Dogs. And there's none of this American everybody did just as well as the other person because we're all special crap at British soccer camp. At British soccer camp, if your name is Willow and you are REALLY good at Cats and Dogs, you get to hear a coach shout "Willow is the winner!" and then everybody gives you a high five.
I tell you, this living vicariously through your kids business might have something going for it.
Monday, July 13, 2009
How was My Weekend? Ummm.....AWESOME!
People liked the comic book pinbacks and record bowls again this month. Yay money and accolades (in that order).
My veggie breakfast burrito from the Bakehouse had an odd mint aftertaste, but their coffee, drunk in between making sales and chatting with passers-by, was delicious.
My dear friend Betsy kept me company and crocheted plastic bags into purses and dish scrubbers. She was there to help me put the side panels up on my booth just before the passing thunderstorm hit, and we were able to do it in time even though we're the two shortest people you could ever ask to do such a job, because we are tool users (I try not to think again about Betsy reaching up, on tiptoes, standing on the narrow end of a cinderblock placed on uneven ground, in the wind).
Lots of vendors left right before the thunderstorm, which made the craft fair look a little sucky but just meant more customers for me.
Two hours after the craft fair closed, we were on our way to Indianapolis.
The girls, having gotten up at 6:00 am for the craft fair, both fell asleep in the car, and Matt and I got to actually, you know, talk.
Our hotel was crazy-awesome! Big fluffy comfy beds, big TV with all the good cable channels, a bowl in the workout room full of complementary oranges and apples for Matt to swipe, etc. I blow-dried my hair. I made Matt go down to the front desk and say I'd forgotten my toothbrush so they'd give me another one. I had the concierge give me brochures for stuff. When Matt caught me putting the packages of pretty leaf-shaped soap from the bathroom in my bag and I told him I was going to save them to put in the girls' stockings at Christmas, he tried to cut me off and I just had to tell him, listen, I am from Arkansas and he knew that when he married me.
I had to drag the family out the door to go to Walking with Dinosaurs because they wanted to see the end of Horton Hears a Who on HBO. I was all, "Everything works out in the end! We'll read the book again when we get home! Can we go make use of our $60 tickets to see giant animatronic dinosaurs now?"
Our seats were really, really good.
The dinosaurs were freaking amazing:
If you looked at a close-up shot on the big screen, at, say, the ankylosaur's face or something, you could tell it wasn't real, but we sat so close that if we'd sat any closer the brachiosaurus would have whapped us with its tail as it made the corner, and they. Looked. REAL!
Before the show, we were doing our run-down again of the whole "the dinosaurs will look really real but they're not real, they're robots, and they'll be really big and stomp and roar but they won't leave the stage and they're just robots," etc., and the lady who was sitting with her husband and kid just one row in front of us, right at the front of the arena, keeps turning and giving us these looks and we're all, whatever. Her kid is, I don't know, six? I'm thinking, "She has a problem with us talking about the dinosaurs not being real? It's not like we're here to see Santa Claus or something." Anyway, the show starts, and the first scene is some dino eggs hatching into baby dinosaurs, and then the liliensternus sneaks up and snatches a baby out of the nest, and the kid in front of us jumps out of her seat and screams, "He killed it! He killed the baby! SHRIEEEEEEEK!!!" and is utterly hysterical. Yeah, they totally told that kid the dinosaurs were real.
I didn't take my camera because I didn't want to be distracted, but I probably should have anyway because you know I'm not completely happy unless I can take photographs of stuff. And that's why whenever I couldn't stand it any longer I took a shot or two with Matt's lousy cell phone camera:
Lousy camera or not, however, I think you can probably still get the idea from this photo that a certain little girl really liked her birthday present:
My veggie breakfast burrito from the Bakehouse had an odd mint aftertaste, but their coffee, drunk in between making sales and chatting with passers-by, was delicious.
My dear friend Betsy kept me company and crocheted plastic bags into purses and dish scrubbers. She was there to help me put the side panels up on my booth just before the passing thunderstorm hit, and we were able to do it in time even though we're the two shortest people you could ever ask to do such a job, because we are tool users (I try not to think again about Betsy reaching up, on tiptoes, standing on the narrow end of a cinderblock placed on uneven ground, in the wind).
Lots of vendors left right before the thunderstorm, which made the craft fair look a little sucky but just meant more customers for me.
Two hours after the craft fair closed, we were on our way to Indianapolis.
The girls, having gotten up at 6:00 am for the craft fair, both fell asleep in the car, and Matt and I got to actually, you know, talk.
Our hotel was crazy-awesome! Big fluffy comfy beds, big TV with all the good cable channels, a bowl in the workout room full of complementary oranges and apples for Matt to swipe, etc. I blow-dried my hair. I made Matt go down to the front desk and say I'd forgotten my toothbrush so they'd give me another one. I had the concierge give me brochures for stuff. When Matt caught me putting the packages of pretty leaf-shaped soap from the bathroom in my bag and I told him I was going to save them to put in the girls' stockings at Christmas, he tried to cut me off and I just had to tell him, listen, I am from Arkansas and he knew that when he married me.
I had to drag the family out the door to go to Walking with Dinosaurs because they wanted to see the end of Horton Hears a Who on HBO. I was all, "Everything works out in the end! We'll read the book again when we get home! Can we go make use of our $60 tickets to see giant animatronic dinosaurs now?"
Our seats were really, really good.
The dinosaurs were freaking amazing:
If you looked at a close-up shot on the big screen, at, say, the ankylosaur's face or something, you could tell it wasn't real, but we sat so close that if we'd sat any closer the brachiosaurus would have whapped us with its tail as it made the corner, and they. Looked. REAL!
Before the show, we were doing our run-down again of the whole "the dinosaurs will look really real but they're not real, they're robots, and they'll be really big and stomp and roar but they won't leave the stage and they're just robots," etc., and the lady who was sitting with her husband and kid just one row in front of us, right at the front of the arena, keeps turning and giving us these looks and we're all, whatever. Her kid is, I don't know, six? I'm thinking, "She has a problem with us talking about the dinosaurs not being real? It's not like we're here to see Santa Claus or something." Anyway, the show starts, and the first scene is some dino eggs hatching into baby dinosaurs, and then the liliensternus sneaks up and snatches a baby out of the nest, and the kid in front of us jumps out of her seat and screams, "He killed it! He killed the baby! SHRIEEEEEEEK!!!" and is utterly hysterical. Yeah, they totally told that kid the dinosaurs were real.I didn't take my camera because I didn't want to be distracted, but I probably should have anyway because you know I'm not completely happy unless I can take photographs of stuff. And that's why whenever I couldn't stand it any longer I took a shot or two with Matt's lousy cell phone camera:
Lousy camera or not, however, I think you can probably still get the idea from this photo that a certain little girl really liked her birthday present:
Friday, July 10, 2009
Orangette Makes REALLY Good Banana Bread
I've been feeling a little lonely lately. The girls have hit a sweet spot in their ages and temperaments, in which every day together is like a playdate. They start in the morning, directly after breakfast, engaging together in one imaginative game after another, leaving a wake of unholy mess behind them, and they continue thus for the entire day. Dress-up moves to dinosaurs moves to stuffed animals moves to hanging out with the tadpoles and moves from there to something else. Heck, they even fix their own lunches--peanut butter sandwiches, YoBaby yogurt, and carrots. I don't eat that well.
I'm very lucky, obviously. I spend the entire day in my own business, now, writing and crafting and making lesson plans, etc. Except that when I'm not fixing lunch for the kidlets, I forget to eat, and when neither kid comes to me bored and they both forget to fight, I forget to suggest taking a trip anywhere, and when neither kid needs a book read or a board game partner I forget to look up from what I'm doing for six hours and then I tend to come to myself at 3:30 pm each day, unshowered and unfed and with a headache and staring at that unholy mess. Yikes.
I would never dare take the children from their happily engaged play to drag them to whatever activities I'd tentatively planned for them, but I have been working, the past couple of days, to regulate my own schedule in a more healthy way without the moods of my girls directing me from my own work to book reading to house cleaning to my own work to lunch making to game playing.
It's funny, but the girls can run by while I'm mopping or blogging or sewing and completely ignore me, but when I'm getting ready to bake, there they are, step stools and ponytail rings at hand, and suddenly I'm the most popular girl in the house again. And that is maybe why I've made this banana bread recipe, adapted from A Homemade Life, twice in the past three days. Or it could also be because it's delicious, and it looks just as good:
A Homemade Life is the book written from the Orangette blog, and the banana bread recipe from the book is a modified version of this banana bread recipe--my favorite improvement, I think, is Orangettte's use of whole milk yogurt instead of milk, or her decision to up the banana count and down the butter amount.
So I actually put in the correct amount of butter and sugar in this recipe, but I used whole wheat flour and dumped in blueberries, slivered almonds, carob chips, and chopped candied ginger.
So freakin' good. And good with my coffee and newspaper again this morning, because if nobody's going to play with you, you might as spoil yourself a little.
And thus we bring ourselves to 9:00 am. The girls are in the other room, talking animatedly over a shared carton of strawberry yogurt. I plan to clean the house, do some laundry, request some books from the library, and make record bowls, pinback buttons, and crayon rolls for my farmer's market craft fair tomorrow--come by if you're local, cause my booth is looking pretty fly these days.
I will also, and don't let me forget, feed myself, take a shower, speak to other adults, and leave my property today. Probably.
I'm very lucky, obviously. I spend the entire day in my own business, now, writing and crafting and making lesson plans, etc. Except that when I'm not fixing lunch for the kidlets, I forget to eat, and when neither kid comes to me bored and they both forget to fight, I forget to suggest taking a trip anywhere, and when neither kid needs a book read or a board game partner I forget to look up from what I'm doing for six hours and then I tend to come to myself at 3:30 pm each day, unshowered and unfed and with a headache and staring at that unholy mess. Yikes.
I would never dare take the children from their happily engaged play to drag them to whatever activities I'd tentatively planned for them, but I have been working, the past couple of days, to regulate my own schedule in a more healthy way without the moods of my girls directing me from my own work to book reading to house cleaning to my own work to lunch making to game playing.
It's funny, but the girls can run by while I'm mopping or blogging or sewing and completely ignore me, but when I'm getting ready to bake, there they are, step stools and ponytail rings at hand, and suddenly I'm the most popular girl in the house again. And that is maybe why I've made this banana bread recipe, adapted from A Homemade Life, twice in the past three days. Or it could also be because it's delicious, and it looks just as good:
A Homemade Life is the book written from the Orangette blog, and the banana bread recipe from the book is a modified version of this banana bread recipe--my favorite improvement, I think, is Orangettte's use of whole milk yogurt instead of milk, or her decision to up the banana count and down the butter amount.So I actually put in the correct amount of butter and sugar in this recipe, but I used whole wheat flour and dumped in blueberries, slivered almonds, carob chips, and chopped candied ginger.
So freakin' good. And good with my coffee and newspaper again this morning, because if nobody's going to play with you, you might as spoil yourself a little.
And thus we bring ourselves to 9:00 am. The girls are in the other room, talking animatedly over a shared carton of strawberry yogurt. I plan to clean the house, do some laundry, request some books from the library, and make record bowls, pinback buttons, and crayon rolls for my farmer's market craft fair tomorrow--come by if you're local, cause my booth is looking pretty fly these days.
I will also, and don't let me forget, feed myself, take a shower, speak to other adults, and leave my property today. Probably.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Butterfly Butts
Those who have heard me rant about the inappropriateness of words and slogans on the butts of girls' pants might find the following evening shot incongruous:
The butterfly, however, turns out to be the perfect shape for reinforcing the backs of pants--look how the wings add extra strength to the often-abraded seat and upper thigh area, and the butterfly's body covers a seam that can commonly split through stress.
And also? The girls came in the study while I was ironing upholstery fabric to vinyl records (don't ask) and wanted stuff ironed to their stuff, too.
That being said, I'm still not in love with fusible webbing. If these pants weren't already on their death beds (I stuck a few more appliques and reverse appliques over the worst of the stains and holes on the fronts of the pants as well, just leaving the, you know, less worse alone), I probably wouldn't try the experiment, because I'm not positive that, over time, the appliques will be able to handle the stress of living on the butts of two very active little girls.
I do, however, recommend fusible webbing for projects that won't get a lot of wear, such as home dec stuff or the fronts of T-shirts, or projects with fiddly little designs, such as my butterfly, or even projects where you can't make your machine sewing accessible, such as a child's shirt sleeve. And here's how to do it (it's really easy):
1. Read the directions on your package of no-sew heat bond adhesive. I use , and Chasing Cheerios, who does a lot of fusible applique, uses Steam a Seam. If you're using a very thick fabric you may have to extend your ironing time by a few seconds, so the directions are something to think about ahead of time.
2. Lay your fabric face-down on your ironing surface, iron it so that it's wrinkle-free, and let it cool.
3. Lay your adhesive paper-side up, so that the adhesive side is facing the wrong side of your fabric.
4. Following the directions on the adhesive package, bond the adhesive to the fabric, bonding an area just bigger than your stencil or pattern (if I'm using a paper pattern, I'll sometimes lay it on top of the paper while I'm ironing so that I bond only the correct area.
5. Cut the bonded fabric away from the rest of the roll of adhesive.
6. Lay your stencil or pattern on top of the paper backing to the adhesive and trace your applique directly onto the paper.
7. Cut out your applique, using nail or thread scissors for those fiddly little corners.
8. Lay your item of clothing or whatever out on your ironing surface, iron the area to be appliqued, and let it cool.
9. Peel the paper off of your applique and place it on your material exactly where you want it to be.
10. Following the directions on the package, bond the applique to the material. If you go under the correct amount of ironing time your applique won't bond, but you can try again after it's cool. If you go over the correct amount of ironing time, however, the adhesive can melt into your applique fabric and then it won't bond at all.
To applique onto non-fabric, which is trickier, check out my post at Crafting a Green World.
The butterfly, however, turns out to be the perfect shape for reinforcing the backs of pants--look how the wings add extra strength to the often-abraded seat and upper thigh area, and the butterfly's body covers a seam that can commonly split through stress.And also? The girls came in the study while I was ironing upholstery fabric to vinyl records (don't ask) and wanted stuff ironed to their stuff, too.
That being said, I'm still not in love with fusible webbing. If these pants weren't already on their death beds (I stuck a few more appliques and reverse appliques over the worst of the stains and holes on the fronts of the pants as well, just leaving the, you know, less worse alone), I probably wouldn't try the experiment, because I'm not positive that, over time, the appliques will be able to handle the stress of living on the butts of two very active little girls.
I do, however, recommend fusible webbing for projects that won't get a lot of wear, such as home dec stuff or the fronts of T-shirts, or projects with fiddly little designs, such as my butterfly, or even projects where you can't make your machine sewing accessible, such as a child's shirt sleeve. And here's how to do it (it's really easy):
1. Read the directions on your package of no-sew heat bond adhesive. I use , and Chasing Cheerios, who does a lot of fusible applique, uses Steam a Seam. If you're using a very thick fabric you may have to extend your ironing time by a few seconds, so the directions are something to think about ahead of time.
2. Lay your fabric face-down on your ironing surface, iron it so that it's wrinkle-free, and let it cool.
3. Lay your adhesive paper-side up, so that the adhesive side is facing the wrong side of your fabric.
4. Following the directions on the adhesive package, bond the adhesive to the fabric, bonding an area just bigger than your stencil or pattern (if I'm using a paper pattern, I'll sometimes lay it on top of the paper while I'm ironing so that I bond only the correct area.
5. Cut the bonded fabric away from the rest of the roll of adhesive.
6. Lay your stencil or pattern on top of the paper backing to the adhesive and trace your applique directly onto the paper.
7. Cut out your applique, using nail or thread scissors for those fiddly little corners.
8. Lay your item of clothing or whatever out on your ironing surface, iron the area to be appliqued, and let it cool.
9. Peel the paper off of your applique and place it on your material exactly where you want it to be.
10. Following the directions on the package, bond the applique to the material. If you go under the correct amount of ironing time your applique won't bond, but you can try again after it's cool. If you go over the correct amount of ironing time, however, the adhesive can melt into your applique fabric and then it won't bond at all.
To applique onto non-fabric, which is trickier, check out my post at Crafting a Green World.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Our New Babies
Blueberry picking was hot work this morning:
At the u-pick blueberry patch, this one lady fainted and they actually had to call out the volunteer ambulance service. Unless I am just about dead, I NEVER give you permission to call the ambulance for me--Matt once paid something like $2,000 for a ten-minute ambulance ride across town to go get his forehead stitched up after he fainted and whacked his head on a table one time. And they didn't even run the siren for him.
We only ended up with about five pounds of blueberries this time (it only seems like a trifle when compared to the 13+ pounds of berries we left with last week), but the girls did leave the berry patch with a few other very precious things in tow:
Tadpoles! Or, as Sydney refers to them, our new baby froggies. Notice their state-of-the-art habitat, please. Also notice that we'll be eating solely out of the pantry and freezer this coming week (thank goodness it's stocked with blueberries!), since I walked into the pet store thinking I'd need a little glass bowl and some fish food, and walked out with a 2.5 gallon aquarium, a set of four aquatic plants, two different colors of aquarium gravel (I have two little girls, you know), and a package of actual tadpole food. Seriously, there are tadpoles right on the front of the package.
So the babies are swimming in style right now, with their $26.14 worth of merchandise and their chlorine-free creek water from the creek a couple of blocks over.
But just look at their little faces:
Aren't they adorable?
At the u-pick blueberry patch, this one lady fainted and they actually had to call out the volunteer ambulance service. Unless I am just about dead, I NEVER give you permission to call the ambulance for me--Matt once paid something like $2,000 for a ten-minute ambulance ride across town to go get his forehead stitched up after he fainted and whacked his head on a table one time. And they didn't even run the siren for him.We only ended up with about five pounds of blueberries this time (it only seems like a trifle when compared to the 13+ pounds of berries we left with last week), but the girls did leave the berry patch with a few other very precious things in tow:
Tadpoles! Or, as Sydney refers to them, our new baby froggies. Notice their state-of-the-art habitat, please. Also notice that we'll be eating solely out of the pantry and freezer this coming week (thank goodness it's stocked with blueberries!), since I walked into the pet store thinking I'd need a little glass bowl and some fish food, and walked out with a 2.5 gallon aquarium, a set of four aquatic plants, two different colors of aquarium gravel (I have two little girls, you know), and a package of actual tadpole food. Seriously, there are tadpoles right on the front of the package.So the babies are swimming in style right now, with their $26.14 worth of merchandise and their chlorine-free creek water from the creek a couple of blocks over.
But just look at their little faces:
Aren't they adorable?
Monday, July 6, 2009
If It Stands Still Long Enough, Stick a Dinosaur on It
With the house being immeasurably more clean and organized after this three-day weekend (during which it rained too hard to do any of the usual fun three-day-weekend stuff), this was the view outside the study today:
It's the painting of the half-finished and recently-rediscovered Pretend Mailbox--we're going to start the Pretend Mailbox tomorrow, I think, so I'll tell you about that next time.
And this was the view inside the study:
It's the painting of the half-finished and recently-rediscovered Pretend Mailbox--we're going to start the Pretend Mailbox tomorrow, I think, so I'll tell you about that next time.And this was the view inside the study:
I have now reached the state of vinyl record crafting, upholstery remnant crafting, and dinosaur crafting that may just be located somewhere in Crazy Land: I have been appliquing dinosaur appliques, done in upholstery remnant fabric, onto old vinyl record albums.
I. LOVE. Them.
P.S. My post about Etsy ripping me off, over at Crafting a Green World, actually earned itself an editor's note that perhaps was intended either to cover CAGW's butt in case I get sued, or as a prequel to firing my crazy ass. In other news, however, Etsy gave me my money back! Phew. It's so much nicer to feel like the right thing happened in the world, just as you expected it to, than it is to feel like some faceless business stole from you, so add a couple of points to my mental health level tonight.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Rain on My Parade (Again)
I can't believe it's pouring down rain on the Fourth of July AGAIN! I mean, sure, it's like 8,000 degrees in my hometown in Arkansas right now, but at least Papa and Aunt Pam and everyone down there can barbecue! And shoot off fireworks! Here in Indiana, it's in the mid-60s. But the grill is standing cold and empty out in the deluge. And the fireworks, they are cancelled. I swear, I am very out sorts. Very out of sorts indeed.
Fortunately, it was only drizzling during the Fourth of July parade this year, unlike last year's utter downpour. We found the BEST spot to sit and watch the parade this year, and no, I'm not going to tell you where it is, because I don't want you to sit there instead of me next year. I do hope that nice man who sat on my other side comes back next year, because he talked trash with me about the very odd lady who encouraged her 13 (I'm not kidding) children to run out into the street, during Taps, to pick up the hot shell casings after the twenty-one gun salute. They also came thisclose to getting hit by every single parade float in the parade due to their focused determination to GET CANDY. And also? I had to crop the entire brood out of every single photo.
Even in the drizzle, all my favorite parade groups were present:
-5.jpg)
We're going to miss their next double-header, but will be back rooting them on in August (My top three fantasy aspirations: 1--Run a farm of my own 2--Be in a stage production of Hair 3--Be a rollergirl).
-3.jpg)
And, of course, Beanpole:-2.jpg)
The monkeys watched the parade and its goings-on solemnly--happily, I suppose, but solemnly, with deep, focused concentration. I'm big on ceremony, so after standing still with hand on heart listening to Momma belt out the national anthem (why don't more people sing along? It's fun), and standing still for the twenty-one gun salute, and standing still for Taps, and standing still for the passing of the flag, I was sort of afraid I'd sucked all the life and fun out of them, but I think they were just concentrating really, REALLY hard on the parade.
In other news, I've been on an unwilling crafting hiatus due to the total chaos of the house, but this three-day weekend (especially since we don't have to take off any time to barbecue or do fireworks) is spelling change for that, my friends.
Fortunately, it was only drizzling during the Fourth of July parade this year, unlike last year's utter downpour. We found the BEST spot to sit and watch the parade this year, and no, I'm not going to tell you where it is, because I don't want you to sit there instead of me next year. I do hope that nice man who sat on my other side comes back next year, because he talked trash with me about the very odd lady who encouraged her 13 (I'm not kidding) children to run out into the street, during Taps, to pick up the hot shell casings after the twenty-one gun salute. They also came thisclose to getting hit by every single parade float in the parade due to their focused determination to GET CANDY. And also? I had to crop the entire brood out of every single photo.
Even in the drizzle, all my favorite parade groups were present:
-5.jpg)
We're going to miss their next double-header, but will be back rooting them on in August (My top three fantasy aspirations: 1--Run a farm of my own 2--Be in a stage production of Hair 3--Be a rollergirl).The Lotus Festival-4.jpg)
The Dark Carnival Film Festival (I get to go to this one by myself, because the rest of my family are wusses)
The Dark Carnival Film Festival (I get to go to this one by myself, because the rest of my family are wusses)-3.jpg)
And, of course, Beanpole:-2.jpg)
The monkeys watched the parade and its goings-on solemnly--happily, I suppose, but solemnly, with deep, focused concentration. I'm big on ceremony, so after standing still with hand on heart listening to Momma belt out the national anthem (why don't more people sing along? It's fun), and standing still for the twenty-one gun salute, and standing still for Taps, and standing still for the passing of the flag, I was sort of afraid I'd sucked all the life and fun out of them, but I think they were just concentrating really, REALLY hard on the parade.Because right afterwards, they shook themselves awake and immediately looked like this:
-1.jpg)
-1.jpg)
And then we went home and made popcorn.
And my fingers are just itching to get back to business next week.
Friday, July 3, 2009
When Etsy Turns Evil
So I bought a Showcase spot in the Supplies category of etsy yesterday, to promote my digital alphabet collection and to ideally burn through some of the supplies backlog in my pumpkinbear etsy shop (I have a bad little habit of rescuing craft items, especially vintage stuff, that I have no plan for using myself). A showcase spot costs seven dollars and puts one of your items at the top of the page of whatever category you've paid for, in a photo bigger than the photos of the items in the lists below. When I bought a showcase spot in the Children category last month, I got a lot of hits and a lot of hearts and some modest sales, including one wholesale order, which was nice.
Who knows who could have found me through my showcase yesterday, because on etsy yesterday, the showcases were all broken.
Seriously.
If you were using Internet Explorer as your Internet browser, you could not click on an item that you saw in a Showcase, nor could you scroll through the Showcase items to see them all. And this was the case from midnight to approximately 6:00 pm.
So yeah, maybe it's not the most sophisticated or imaginative choice out there, but it is the one that comes with the box, and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of web browsers use Internet Explorer. And midnight to 6:00 pm does contain, I'm pretty sure, some mighty popular times for internet use. So I sent an email, first thing in the morning, actually, to customer care at etsy, telling them that I'd be wanting a refund or a transfer to a different showcase date, since my showcase spot wasn't working as it was supposed to.
Here's my awesome reply, which didn't come until after the Showcases were fixed, about 10 hours after my email:
Hello Julie,
Thanks for your email. This bug is fixed and all of the items listed in the Showcase can now be viewed. Etsy shoppers who visit the site use various browsers so the amount of people not able to scroll was very limited.
Thanks for being a member of the Etsy community.
All the best,
Joe
Etsy Support
So not only are the people at Etsy browser snobs, but now they're shafting me out of my hard-earned seven bucks? A terser restatement of my request ensued, but now Joe's ignoring me, of course, so we'll have to see what happens with that.
Want to see what would have been in my Showcase, if you could have clicked on it and bought all my stuff all day yesterday?
4.15 oz of Superwash Merino in Rainbow Colors (because you can't felt superwash)
Vintage Brown Owl Needlepoint Greeting Card Kit
E-Z Bow Maker
You totally want that E-Z Bow Maker in particular, I know. You dream at night about making honking big swag bows to put on the ends of church pews.
Who knows who could have found me through my showcase yesterday, because on etsy yesterday, the showcases were all broken.
Seriously.
If you were using Internet Explorer as your Internet browser, you could not click on an item that you saw in a Showcase, nor could you scroll through the Showcase items to see them all. And this was the case from midnight to approximately 6:00 pm.
So yeah, maybe it's not the most sophisticated or imaginative choice out there, but it is the one that comes with the box, and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of web browsers use Internet Explorer. And midnight to 6:00 pm does contain, I'm pretty sure, some mighty popular times for internet use. So I sent an email, first thing in the morning, actually, to customer care at etsy, telling them that I'd be wanting a refund or a transfer to a different showcase date, since my showcase spot wasn't working as it was supposed to.
Here's my awesome reply, which didn't come until after the Showcases were fixed, about 10 hours after my email:
Hello Julie,
Thanks for your email. This bug is fixed and all of the items listed in the Showcase can now be viewed. Etsy shoppers who visit the site use various browsers so the amount of people not able to scroll was very limited.
Thanks for being a member of the Etsy community.
All the best,
Joe
Etsy Support
So not only are the people at Etsy browser snobs, but now they're shafting me out of my hard-earned seven bucks? A terser restatement of my request ensued, but now Joe's ignoring me, of course, so we'll have to see what happens with that.
Want to see what would have been in my Showcase, if you could have clicked on it and bought all my stuff all day yesterday?
4.15 oz of Superwash Merino in Rainbow Colors (because you can't felt superwash)
Vintage Brown Owl Needlepoint Greeting Card Kit
E-Z Bow Maker
You totally want that E-Z Bow Maker in particular, I know. You dream at night about making honking big swag bows to put on the ends of church pews.Ooh, or maybe your front door!
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