The Buying, It Does Not End

Since I'm still tootling away on my Christmas in July Stashbuster swap (a few minutes ago, while labelling the dinosaurs Willow was drawing on thank-you cards in preparation for the girls' birthday bash this coming weekend--pteranodon, apatosaurus, stegosaurus, and triceratops so far--I had the awesomest idea for what I'm going to make for the littlest member of my swap family. Yay!), I have no actual crafting news to share, other than the fact that hand-sewing is not so much my forte, but I can show you yet more stuff that I've thrifted lately, primarily from our yesterday trip to Indy.

One of the nicest things about our little town, along with the farmer's market, the Recycling Center, Pizza Express, and the fact that it's a liberal hotbed in the middle of Indiana, is its distance--about an hour or so--from Indianapolis. That makes spontaneous trips to the Indianapolis Zoo possible. Thus, while at 9:00 am on Saturday we were sitting around in our filthy living room watching the girls pester the foster kittens, anticipating no more to the day than a little housecleaning and yardwork, by noon we were looking through a lighted window for sea lions

and watching a koala sit on its fat butt and munch eucalyptus leaves (Everyone knows that eucalyptus leaves are notoriously non-nutritive, right, and that's why koalas eat all the time? I suggested to Matt that a better food should be offered to koalas, but somehow, he failed to see the incredible insight in that), and sneaking up on the hundreds of these fluttering around in the giant greenhouse and getting splashed in the Splash Zone at the dolphin show (I'm probably alone in this, but whenever Willow and I sit there I have these frightening fantasies that a dolphin will misjudge its leap and land, spine crushed upon impact, right there on the pavement at our feet. Screaming, rioting, etc. to ensue. Am I alone in that?), and just generally looking like this:

As if that wasn't enough, on the way home we stopped by the most hard-core of thrifting experiences, the Goodwill Outlet Store. Stuff is unsorted here, people. Sold by weight. Stored in big blue bins. It's like community dumpster-diving, basically, complete with old potty chairs with dried pee still in them, and pill bottles, and band-aids. Matt and Sydney sat on a couch and fell asleep, but Will and I were in dumpster heaven. She found a bunch of dinosaur shirts and dinosaur books, and I found an 1890 Bible (beautiful, and now a birthday gift for a treasured little cousin), a pillowcase for a dress that is embroidered, I kid you not, like this

a wool sweater hand-knitted in Ecuadorthat is right this second felting in the washing machine and, most awesomely, this: Hell, yes, Will is jumping on the Master of the Universe himself! There's He-Man, and Skeletor, and Castle Greyskull, and Ram Man, and Teela. Obviously this bedspread visited the sanitary cycle in my washing machine bright and early this morning, and no, I'm not conflicted by my love of 80s crap media versus my refusal to allow my girls to experience commercial media. So they won't have any interest in 20-year-old bedspreads printed with pop culture images when they're 32? Whatever, they can buy space ponies or something instead.

Buying and Selling (and Buying)

I try to buy locally, but for all that, I've been indulging a bit in online commerce recently, and of course I quite encourage the online purchase of high-quality handmade fangeek goods from my own online shop, so there you go.

I don't know if you do this, but when I'm preparing to go on vacation with the family, I tend to use that time to buy a bunch of stuff. You know, stuff like the baby wears her really ratty swim trunks that used to be her sister's to the local pool every day, but she certainly can't wear ratty swim trunks on vacation, so let's go shopping! And the girls have tons and tons of art supplies and small toys here at home, but I'd bet they'd behave so much better on an airplane if they had all new art supplies and small toys, so let's go buy some! None of those previous items have yet to be purchased, although they're all on the dream list, but this week I did buy a few extravagances for our upcoming trip.

Although I have successfully made my own mei tai, I found it bulky and awkward. The straps crossed right over my quite substantial breasts, for instance, and although that was nicely supportive, it leaves something to be desired aesthetically, I believe. I just can't get the use out of something if I don't really love it, so I never did wear Sydney in my home-concocted mei tai as much as I would have liked to, and so recently I broke down and bought this awesome mei tai. It's pink with skulls on one side, you see, in case I'm feeling fancy, and plain black on the other side in case I need to blend. The straps are long enough so I can tie them backpack style instead of across or under my breasts, which is comfier on us more ample figures, and it's way trimmer than my bulky old tai. Although mei tais, especially in a back carry, have a learning curve (it takes me a few tries still to get the mei tai pulled up around Syd's back without catching her butt on the top and thus sitting her on it instead of in it, which makes me swear), and although I have a couple of personal preference mods to make on it, such as padding the straps where they sit on my shoulder and the back where it catches Syd's thighs, I love, love, LOVE it. Love it.

This year Willow is old enough to carry her own backpack with her own and Sydney's things inside, toys and snacks and etc., and so I decided to buy the girls and myself some nice, reusable water bottles. I'm not a fan of the whole commercial bottled water concept, nor do I approve of the long-term re-use of an old commercial water bottle for your own water needs. That cheap plastic leaches, which you ought to be able to tell from the way that the really old bottles of really dedicated re-use types look all discolored and yellow-brown. There will be no phthalates in my breastmilk or my kids' bloodstream, I say! That's why, even though I disapprove of the willful misspelling, I bought us some Klean Kanteens. They're food-grade stainless steel, nice and light and non-leaching. The bottle mouths are wide enough to pour ice cubes in, and you can buy sippy spouts for them, but we like sports caps because they're also relatively non-spill. I bought the plain silver 27-ounce for myself, Matt didn't want one, Willow chose the blue 12-ounce for herself, and Sydney chose the pink 12-ounce. Oddly enough, I didn't actually buy these from the Klean Kanteen site, because this Greenfeet site was about twenty dollars cheaper for our order. Weird.

In other news, it's finally time to say goodbye to my Sandman soldered glass pendant, which hung around on my etsy shop for months even though it had tons upon tons of hearts. It will be happily wending its way to its new forever home tomorrow.

If you're wondering why I haven't been showing off my crafting lately, it's because it's a secret! I'm tootling along on my Christmas in July Stashbuster swap on Craftster, set to send out before we leave on vacation, but hopefully I'll finish tootling this weekend and then I have lots of other wacky crafty ideas to try out and post after that.

Growing Like a Tall Tree, Big and Bold

Here's my Willow at four days:
Four weeks:

Four Months:

And, as of today, four years:
Happy Birthday, my baby.

Or Maybe One of These?

Today the other one has a fever, so it's another morning of PBS and the Magic for Kids DVD, uprooting my plans to leave the house for cake mix, ice cream, thrift-store pillowcases, and a photo grey printer cartridge. The Letter of the Day, however, is R, and the Number of the Day is 8.

I've fallen back in love with the other two options for my entry into the Color Class of the photo contest at the Monroe County Fair. Here's one option: It's from the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. I like that it's a self-portrait but since the mirrors are all wonky, my camera isn't pointed straight at myself, and I like the angle of the self-portrait. I also like the two images of Willow within the photo.

This one is Sydney just after she finished nursing. I like the dreamy quality, but it's also pretty grainy.

Which do you think is the best of the three?

Just Like in Little House on the Prairie

My entry for the Creative Class!

The big kid stayed in bed with a fever all morning, watching TV and accompanied by her sister, and yet today I still managed to make an egg breakfast nobody ate, fetch juice and "bunny crackers" and juice and peanut butter sandwiches and juice, ineffectively clean the house, work on the computer, curse at the printer, put a child down for a nap, conduct a large-scale craft project with another child, get into a big argument about the clean-up of said craft project, search every freaking where for tap shoes, get children dressed for dance class, continue argument about craft project clean-up, take children to dance class (even the one who had a fever this morning because I NEEDED A BREAK), work on the computer during dance class, take children home from dance class, take the car to the shop because its brakes are being funky, visit Hobby Lobby for party supplies (icing bags and tips, biiiiiiiig cake pan, candles), have serious conversation with tearful child about how we can't afford to buy her every single party supply in the store for her party (This was huge for me. I seriously want my kid to say, "Wow, Mama! A jump house--that must have cost a fortune! A cake shaped just like a dinosaur--no telling how long it took you to make that! I couldn't ask for anything more!" Instead she's all, "I want a cupcake stand to hold the cupcakes I want! And these purple glittery sprinkles! And these whistles shaped like dogs!" Seriously, what gives?), conclude argument about clean-up of craft project at home (not quite a win, but not quite a loss), melt down from low blood sugar, eat dinner, feel better, go on long bike ride continually harangued by husband because I tend to keep bike in first gear, go home, put kids to bed, collapse.

In other news, the big kid and I are currently being worked up into a complete lather because we have decided to enter stuff into our county fair. It's something that only townies do, but I've been here for eight years now, and it's time. 

Entering the county fair is about as awesome as it gets. There are a million categories, even for kids, and I think that everyone gets a ribbon, and first prize? It's a dollar. Awesome, right? 

So the big kid is entering about a million of the Young Child contests, including jewelry (she beaded a frankly half-hearted necklace but a much better crown), quick bread (is it appropriate for a four-year-old to enter beer bread?), photography (Polaroid film is on our shopping list for tomorrow), collections (hello? Dinosaurs!), and paper art (I have the sweetest fingerpainting with foam heart collage that she did last week during a break from painting the playhouse. Seriously, it rocks). I, too, am entering tons, including recycled art (I'm thinking my favorite fatty steg), sewing for children (pillowcase dress?), holiday ornaments (I made these crazy spiderwebby wire things with black beads while the big kid was throwing beads around the room this afternoon), photography, and whatever else I can come up with before Wednesday (I only found the entry information this week, and not being a townie, on account of they just KNOW things, I practically had to hack into somebody's server to find it). 

I'm making Matt enter, too--he's going to enter some of the comic strips we've drawn into the Sketch category, and tomorrow night he's getting out the Legos to show the big kid, because they have a Lego category both for adults and young children. See? Awesome. 

I've even got my dear friend to come over on Wednesday so we can go over to the fairgrounds all together and I can make her enter these messenger bags and purses she crochets out of plastic bags. Crochets, people. Out of plastic bags.

So my photography entries are pretty much ready, except, you know, that I still have to crop the borders off them and matte them and buy a frame and frame them, but yeah, pretty much ready. 

This is my entry for the Black and White Class:

It's the big kid with a sparkler. I like how abstract it is, how you maybe can't even tell that it's a child with a sparkler. It's just chaotic and beautiful and maybe frightening, just like my life.

Do you enter your county fair? You should.

Crazy Cool Creative Toys

Just because I'm a mean mom and don't buy my girls anything new doesn't mean that I don't totally covet really cool kids' toys. I like the girls to have non-media-oriented, non-electronic toys that are ethically produced, made with renewable resources and without harmful chemicals, and are sturdy and inspire creativity and a variety of appropriate uses at a variety of developmental levels. That's not much to ask, right? No wonder I make a lot of the girls' stuff out of cardboard and felted wool, but if I could, I'd buy...Look at this awesome baby. It's apparently called Totem, from Hip from Holland. It's a building toy made from laminated recycled cardboard printed with these cool graphic design-y images, and you put them together with the slots in the sides to make stuff.

I think these dyed wooden arches are another interesting take on the construction toy. It's cool to add dimension to the typical stack-a-block form of construction play.

How minimalist is this scooter?
Name an art supply, and I'm pretty much its biggest fan, but these beeswax crayons sound especially awesome:

They're supposed to have a lot of pigment for their consistency, which means extra-brilliant colors. The girls love to experiment with drawing on colored construction paper--you know, light blue on blue or whatever, so it would be nice to not often have to squint to admire their work.

The girls haven't really done dollhouses yet--they used to have a medieval castle they'd play with sometimes, although they didn't have any teeny people to populate it (how did I not notice that and therefore put the craft wagon into gear?), and they have an old-school garage sale Fisher Price garage that they often use with my childhood Hot Wheels collection, rescued from the family attic one winter--and I'll probably end up making them one out of a cardboard box and some dolls out of felt, but wouldn't this upscale treehouse residence be cool?

I like how it doesn't have rooms, per se, but you can manipulate all the materials to make it however you want.

These metal letters are part of some crazy complicated children's early literacy program (I'm suspicious in that the children's T-shirts this program also sells are touted as an "important reinforcement in the program," but whatever), but don't they totally look fun, too? Willow's way into stringing letters together and having me "read" them, and Sydney's a stacker and sorter and arranger, so they'd both think these were pretty cool.

Know more cool toys? Share!

Well, At Least It's Over Now

At least I can say that I've done it now: I've sold at a craft show in the rain. A deluge, really. I mentioned before, right, that I don't have a tent? My usual practice in case of rain is to buy one of the crap E-Z Up lite tents from Sam's the night before the big event and then return it afterwards on account of it sucks, but it's never actually come out and rained before when I've gone to all that trouble, so I won't tell you whose husband talked her out of doing the same thing yesterday even though there was a 40% chance of rain today, but I will tell you that that husband sucked, because it totally rained. A lot.

I thought I had it made, anyway, because I got the show organizer to let me set up next to my usual spot, in a spot always left empty because it contains a big tree. So I set up under the big tree, and thought that if I kept everything inside the drip line, I'd be so happy and dry. Inside the drip line, people. That sounds like a good plan, right? And at first, when it was just sprinkling, it totally worked. And then, when it was raining a little harder, it kind of worked. But then, when it was pouring and thundering and lightening right over my head and I'm soaked to the skin and the stand holding the pillowcase dresses falls over and the plate holding the cut-out buttons is full of water to the brim, it really didn't work all that well at all.

Really, not much of my stuff got wet because it rained mostly during set-up, but my infrastructure got soaked, which made everything damp anyway, and I got soaked, which made me grumpy, and I couldn't make my set-up look anything like it wasn't all bedraggled and sad after a thunderstorm, and then hardly anybody even came out to the farmer's market, anyway, on account of it was still all gross and humid and probably going to rain again. But now I can say that I've sold at a craft fair in the rain. That makes up for not actually breaking even, right?

Pretty Pretty Pictures Running in the Rain

So we're all bustling around here at 8:00 pm, because Matt wants to go to, of all places, the drive-in on the night before I have to get up at 6:00 am for the farmer's market craft fair. And I'm bustling and bustling, and then suddenly I realize, "Hey, all my craft fair stuff is ready to go. I'm going to sit down while Matt cleans out the car and puts laundry on the line and whatever." So here I am. You're pretty happy for me, aren't you?

I've been working on a photo album to have out at craft fairs, recycling an old 8x10 portfolio book from Matt's job-hunting days, but unfortunately it will not be on debut at the craft fair tomorrow because the printer crapped out on me this morning and I spent over five hours fiddling with it off and on, reinstalling the software, reinstalling the print driver, uninstalling the last Microsoft updates (Vista sucks, you should know) before I called Matt at work and he's all, "Oh, the printer did that to me the other night. Unplug it and plug it back in." Good as new.

Here's what I got to, anyway:

I think they're turning out pretty sweet.

I also made up some new and sturdy craft fair signs this week--you might remember that craft fair signs are usually the bane of my existence, mostly because I don't make them sturdy enough and they get trashed during (literal) tear-down. So this time I printed them on overhead transparencies, backed them with thick natural-color matte board, and covered both sides with contact paper. They show well in natural light, although not indoors, and they won't be ruined if it rains tomorrow, which there is a 40% chance of at noon. The craft fair is over at 1:00 pm. I do not own a tent because they are expensive. Will luck be on my side? Only time will tell...

Tree Monkeys

After a morning spent making glycerine soap with the girls and reading back issues of My Big Backyard to them and folding laundry while finishing up watching the first season of Big Love from the library and calling Matt to come home early for lunch because the girls wanted him to grill them hamburgers, it finally stopped raining this afternoon and we could quell our antsies over at the park. I was supposed to be taking photos of this

and thesebut it was a weird afternoon for taking photos of shiny stuff, and I'm not in love with any of them.

So instead, I burned through my entire CF card taking photos of this:

Yep, it's the infamous climbing tree. Today is a special day on the climbing tree, because today, instead of staring up at her sister climbing like a monkey and whining, ground-bound (I'm mean in that I don't give boosts--my playground philosophy is that if you're not able to do it independently, then it's not safe for you to do. If you are able to do it independently--go crazy, kid!), Sydney figured out how to climb into the tree: She's pretty proud of herself, right?

So why would I want to keep taking stupid photos of my stupid one-dollar buttons with this going on just over my head?

Awesome kids.

In other news, I phoned Matt this afternoon in the middle of a big Southern fit because I'd just received YET ANOTHER letter from the library stating that we owed them five dollars because the DVD box set of Aqua Teen Hunger Force had a damaged case. I don't know how often the freakin' library charges us for crap stuff that we totally did not do! We got charged five dollars for a back-issue of Bust with water damage, five dollars for a missing case to a Bright Eyes CD, and fifteen dollars for a board book with the cover torn off. Okay, to be honest, we did do all those things, but we did not damage Aqua Teen Hunger Force! So I call Matt, throw a big Southern fit, and you know what he says? "Let's talk about it when I get home."

Let's talk about it when I get home? I see. So I say, "What did you do to Aqua Teen Hunger Force?" Turns out that Matt, biking to work, thought that he might as well return some DVDs to the library on his way. He's holding them in his hand, hits a bump, drops Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and manages to run over it on his bike. We're lucky we're just having to pay for the case, frak him. Anyway, does anybody know a good pattern for sewing some bicycle saddlebags?

A New Freezer and...A Really Big BOX!

Ah, the joy of the really big box. Last night we trekked over to Menard's to buy a chest freezer, and it was probably less than twelve hours between Matt nearly herniating himself hauling the boxed freezer down to the basement and this:

  

Hello, ratty basement playhouse in the playroom I painted pink because I didn't remember how it would crazy up colors when I photographed in it!

The kids and I are fond of projects we can immerse ourselves in for days (I mentioned that I'm obsessive, right?), so I expect the playhouse decoration and interior design to only get better, but while Syd napped her afternoon nap Will and I were able to get a lot of work done on one side wall--

--and the front door--

I donated the scrapbook paper that I bought as part of a set but that is way too cheezy for me to actually use (surfing? the American flag?)--

--and Will and I worked some collaborative finger-painting, as well:

 

And then after Syd woke up, both kids had a good long play down in the basement with the playhouse while I went about my own productive business. Of course, the playroom floor now looks like this--

--but whatever, it's not like it looked that much better before.

The chest freezer is 7.2 cubic feet, and we got a pretty good sale on it. The idea is to freeze stuff, duh, but dinners mostly--this coming fall semester I'm teaching the same hours that I worked last fall semester, Monday through Wednesday, 5:45 pm to 8:30 pm. And last fall semester, Matt would come pick me up after teaching, kids in the car past their bedtimes, and likely as not, as soon as I got in the car he'd ask, "What do you want for dinner?" If he didn't ask that question, you can bet there would be a hot pizza in a cardboard box waiting on the passenger seat. 

And mind you, I'm not going to fill our new chest freezer full of gourmet home-cooked dinners--when left to my own devices every day, I feed the girls Quorn nuggets/grilled cheese sandwich/peanut butter sandwich/Boca dog/leftovers from last night's dinner with the additional possibilities of cheese cubes, whole wheat crackers, or soy yogurt, and no less than two different raw fruit/vegetable combinations--but I can fill it with lots of bulk frozen dinner options from Sam's Club. Matt and the kids are both inordinately fond of plain cheese tortellini, no sauce--barf.

What I Waste My Time With When I Waste My Time

So I have a craft fair this weekend to prepare for, a new syllabus to prepare that takes into account the administration's assignment of a different grammar text for freshman comp classes (grr!), an upcoming California vacation to think of fun things to do during, and four people's library queues to sort through and find where all the overdue books are buried, not to mention the general household upkeeping of getting rid of the gnats from the kitchen and the pee smell from the bathroom, so what did the girls and I spend the whole day making? This!!!

No, sweetie, I'm not going to make you guess. It's a bunting for the girls' big summer birthday party! I looked at a few tutorials, but in the end I didn't do anything that they suggested and instead just winged it, and I think it looks highly festive for it. The flags are all hung on a long piece of hemp twine and I attempted to sew them to it, but I didn't get too fussy if the thread didn't catch. The flags themselves, all from scrap, are all different sizes, only they are all isosceles triangles, because I like the symmetrical look.

Willow helped me pick out the fabric from my stash. Can you tell?

I also didn't turn the fabric to hem it or anything--I'm just going to let the sucker fray.

The girls helped by constantly trying to leapfrog over my cutting mat on the floor while I worked, and they made their own "banners" from the scraps, and I actually have those banners in my pocket right now because I confiscated them before dance class. To be a kid--doesn't it just make you sick how awesome their lives are?

Speaking of, the big summer birthday plans just keep on happening. We've got a date, which is July 26, a Saturday that doesn't conflict with Matt's softball team party and during which Willow's best little friend will be in town. We have ordered--wait for it--a freakin' jump house!!! At least I think we have--when I asked Matt if he'd called and ordered it today, his exact words were "Don't worry about it." That means he ordered it, right, and not just that he's dicking around about it but doesn't want to be nagged? The price was nothing to sneeze at, but also not totally outrageous when you consider that not only is the party the girls' actual birthday present from us, but that also, since we have a jump house, we can forgo additional games and prizes and other hoopla. And our adult friends who just hang out on the couch and grit their teeth and grin throughout the weirdo kids' activities will absolutely be on board with a jump house. And, and Matt insists that this is the only reason why we got one, I totally want a jump house!!!

So now my current conundrum consists of the fact that Willow wants a cake shaped like a dinosaur. Hmmm. Have a mentioned that I don't know how to cook? Or bake, or whatever? We do have awesome food coloring, however, and Matt claims that if we get a big enough cake pan and throw enough boxes of cake mix into it, he can cut out the silhouette of a dinosaur into that cake. Should we get cake mix that bakes up red inside, so it looks like the dinosaur is bleeding as you cut it? Oooh, maybe with red pudding? Do they make red pudding? No, I can make red pudding! And put candy bones in it! And little cavepeople! Okay, I'm going to bed now.

The Pillowcase Dress Obsession Revealed!

I mentioned in a previous post my latest obsession for making pillowcase dresses. To illustrate the madness, my partner and I took the girls to the park this afternoon for a candy-bribed photo shoot. I have made a freakin' lot of pillowcase dresses, y'all.

One thing I really like about the pillowcase dresses is their versatility. It's partly the fact that for the armholes, I made a casing for a drawstring ribbon so that you can adjust the fit for length and width, but it's also, I think, the fact that the style is so classic that it works as a dress or a top. This dress that Sydney's wearing, for instance, would be a long dress on a one-year-old, probably, and would just get gradually shorter until it's a swingy little top on a five-year-old. On Sydney it's just the right length to show off her chubby little Sydney knees:I also like a lot how you can adjust the fit with the ribbon ties. On these matching dresses I made for the girls, I made them a little big on them on purpose, so I scrunch the underarm material down and tie the shoulder ribbons for a pretty high neckline: On this dress, though, I tied the shoulder ribbons really loose for a much wider neckline: And yes, because I'm totally nuts I made matching drawstring bags out of leftover pillowcase material for almost all the dresses:
I finally decided that I liked this narrow ribbon best for the shoulder ties. You can tie it in a really tight knot, if you want, so that your kiddo can't pick it out or so you can leave it the exact same size through several washes, or you can tie it in just a bow and be able to undo it quickly and easily:
This one, of course, is Willow's most absolute favorite. Is she too far away, or can you see the dinosaurs? Oh, and see her brand-new tricycle? Donated by a neighbor, after he bought his daughter a big-girl bike and then heard me holding court at the pool about our recent theft. I tell ya, people can be nice.
Do you see the cross-stitch on this pillowcase? It kills me!

So, yeah, that's a lot of pillowcase dresses for two little girls. We'll be keeping some of them, the matching dresses and the dino dress for sure, but I'm going to have to list most of these on etsy. I know there are lots more vintage pillowcases in the world, and I have to make room!

Blog List

I'm sure this will be big news for you, but... I tend to be a little obsessive. No, seriously. I know, I know, I'm really subtle about it, but yeah, there it is. So, you know, if we get a DVD box set from the library, and I discover that I really like the series (hello, Joan of Arcadia!), I will watch all 36 or whatever hours of that series before I do anything else in the world besides eating, sleeping, and basic parenting. If there's a cookie cake in the house, I literally cannot settle down until that cookie cake has been consumed in its entirety. Preferably by me. The average time it takes me to read any good novel, no matter the length? About a day. You know, obsessive.

For a week now, I've been flat-out obsessed with making pillowcase dresses. I bought a few pillowcases at a Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale months ago and stuck them in the stash and in the back of my mind, and there they sat, but a few weeks ago during my forced felted wool stegosaurus sweat shoppe, I started thinking, "Pillowcase dresses. Pillowcase dresses. Pillowcase dresses." So I made the girls a matching set for their friend Phillip's birthday party last weekend:

It was fun, so I made another the next day. And another. When I ran out of pillowcases, we went to Goodwill--they're 99 cents there! I bought several, including one dinosaur-print(!). I knew I had it bad when on Thursday, dropping Willow off at a playdate, I bragged to my mom-friend that I'd made Sydney's little pillowcase shirt just that morning. In the afternoon, re-exchanging kids at the library, Noel noticed that Sydney was in a different pillowcase dress, and asked if I'd made that one, too. I said, "Yeah... About half an hour ago, actually." Oh, well. Sydney had another new hot-off-the-presses pillowcase dress for the Fourth of July parade, and then another one this morning for errand-running (Willow wanted to wear it, but Sydney said yes first. So I promised I'd make Willow her dinosaur-print pillowcase dress this afternoon). So, um...yeah. Obsessive.

Another thing I've been obsessed about lately is the finding and reading of crafty blogs--you know I list them sometimes here in the blog, but I tend to lose track of which ones I've mentioned. Hence the new feature I've been playing with, on the right above the archives and below the wist gallery: a blog list!!! Now both you and I can obsessively have handy not only the names and links of my favorite crafty blogs, but also snippets of their latest entries and a tag for how long ago they were last updated! Ooh, so helpful for keeping obsessively up-to-date.

Do you heart a crafty blog?

America the Delicious

Possibly because of the big build-up to Independence Day, possibly in anticipation of our summer trip to California at the end of the month, or possibly because the girls are growing up to be big nerds like me and they just like stuff, but for the past week, along with snails, dinosaurs, magic, fossils, and tap-dancing, the girls have been obsessed with maps. I found the web site Megamaps, which has these free, printable maps of the world and the continents and the countries and the states of the US, and I printed off an 8x8--yes, a 64-PAGE!!--map of the United States for the girls. I taped it together for them, and it stayed in the smack-middle of the living room floor for several days (Hey! Walk AROUND America, would you?) until both little people agreed it was finished, and then we hung it on these IKEA picture-hanger-thingies (well, I started to hang it on the thingies, and then I accidentally knocked a big hole in the wall, so Matt had to actually do it, but that makes a "we," right? Anyway, IKEA sucks) in the basement playroom that I'm almost finished painting after about two months, and anyway, it looks like this: You can't really tell in this picture, but we did a lot of discussing of the way in which maps use symbols to represent real things in the world, so along with the general coloring and pasting pretty things, I showed the girls where on the map our families live, and they glued hearts, and they glued flowers where friends live, and stars where we've visited together as a family, and then we cut relevant photos out of old National Geographic and out-of-date schoolbooks to glue on places. Children's geography textbooks from the 1950s SUCKED! It was all about the different industries in the country, so I'm all, "Look, an auto manufacturing plant! Go glue that onto Michigan. It's the one above Indiana with the heart for Grandma Shoemaker. No, the other heart. Okay, good, but that's Arkansas there, with the picture of the cotton field. Look higher." Etc. Here's our Indiana, but you can see Chicago and southern Michigan and Lexington, Kentucky, too:

Here's good old Arklahoma:And here's busy California, where most of Matt's family lives: Of course all this map work should have its happy outlet in the excitement of the Independence Day parade, right? Yay, America! Eh. Here's what we were doing at 10:00 this morning:
Yep, Clue #8,684,933 that we love our kids.Although this was apparently a good moment for me:

And so what did we do this afternoon, after walking home from the parade and hanging up our soaking clothes and taking hot baths? We made another freakin' map, the craaaaziest yet!

Does it even look like the United States? Matt was supposed to be in charge of forming the dough, but he had to be excused because he is generally incapable of handling messy family activities without, you know, screaming at the kids. So he had to go clean the bedroom, and I had to utilize my rough three-dimensional visualization skills. But I think it looks pretty great. We've got icing water and grass, chocolate chip mountain ranges, a sour strip Mississippi River, gummy compass points, etc. And, of course, gummy fish and worms and frogs and fruit and mini M&Ms ("They represent the PEOPLE, Momma!").

Here's a close-up of the Northeast. Notice the big mounds of flour that Willow kept dumping on the map--"It makes things not sticky!" Um, yes, sweetie, but when I told you that I was talking about your HANDS. There's supposed to be coconut up north for snow, but it toasted in the oven.

You can't know you've had a good time unless you're feeling a little sick, right?Ugh. Wish me luck--I'm about to go inform the girls that I have a bootleg stash of firecrackers hidden away in the linen closet. Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans.