Notions on a theme--old stuff & back to basics.

Last few weeks blah. I am so tired. I feel mostly good about volunteering at Cub Scout/Webelos Camps. The last day was rough. But at least I waved the flag by being there. And having some (maybe 1/2 dozen insanely, maybe 30 or so more moderately to mildly so) 9 & 10 year old boys be absolutely fascinated with my passion (Greco-Roman stuffage) & asking mad crazy questions about what I bored them with was awesome. Arts & crafts & learning, yeah. But it felt good to connect to those kids. They all loved looking through my books. Admittedly the one book they all like was the 100 facts about gladiators books, but hey, most of the kids liked all the books & having at least 1 book every kid looked through made me happy.

Just thinking--things I did today.

I cooked:


Banana Bread--from the Betty Crocker Cookbook--5 mini loaves--1 half gone, 1 in the fridge freezer, 3 in the deep freeze. For CharlieBoy the Schnauzer. For breakfast. I want to make up a lot of bread type things so he can have something warm homemade for breakfast when he is home. I will be making chocolate raspberry next. Traci & I made some once with raspberries from the yard & it was delicious. But not enough chocolate--because you can never have enough chocolate. So more chocolate. And I'm thinking apple bread too. Yummy. Nat & Tori made apple muffins one time & it was delicious, I think I can modify their fixings to quickbread pretty easily.

I tried to make pizza rolls, then the second batch I tried to make pizza sandwich pockets. Ugh, tasted yummy, looked disgusting. Think we'll try that again. I made up pizza dough from a package (wanted it to go quickly) then we rolled it out. It stuck like crazy & the bread part looked awful & the fillings oozed out but I rather liked the taste. Charlie helped me try to move the pockets the best he could but it really didn't work. He suggested that next time I roll out the dough & put it on the cookie sheet & put the filler on the dough & cover with a layer of dough & pinch the dough together around the filler. I want to do pepperoni pizza and ham & cheddar & maybe broccoli and chicken & broccoli. I'm kind of excited about the thought of figuring it all. But if I can get it to work we'll make up a bunch then freeze it up for snacks. Yum.

No knitting for weeks. I am jonesing for it, as soon as my mother-in-law gets here I can get to work on some poor projects that have been languishing in neglect.

Charlie & Natalie have gotten Nat's (new name courtesy my friend Valerie from playgroup, Stormy) new bed done. It looks awesome, her room looks like a much older kid's room. Wah! My baby girl is getting so big! {Of course the fact that she wears the same size bra as my mom is freaking me out as well. And she is taller than all of her grandmas & most of her aunts!}They did a great job.

We needed to do something about her room because it was getting unacceptable to the point of nasty. clothes everywhere but put up, crap on her desk, things getting broken because they weren't put up, dresser drawers over stuffed then broken, things shoved under her bed, losing things, never having a hairbrush & looking ratty & uncared for, things hanging on the back of her chair & making it fall over & break things, being late because she could never find anything, food trash & dishes when she isn't allowed to eat in her room. So we decided to try & make things work for her & us instead of fussing at her (because that was working really well & making us all so very happy).

We figured that putting her in a loft bed would make it easier to keep the underside of her bed from being a black hole for crap--at least we can see it. And she has at least twice the desk space so now she has a place for her ant farms & triops city & sea monkeys (we need to buy her some more). She has shelving for her manga with plenty of room to grow.

We took one of her little white shelves out & put a larger black one in so she had more room for books + room to grow again. Also we bought her a dresser with more room in it for her clothing so she could get everything in there instead of needing to hang some things up--which never happened & clean clothes just got thrown on the floor & mixed with dirty & rewashed without ever being worn or shoved in the dresser.
More book shelves full of her favorite series with room to grow. Her mirror has a clock in it to help her be more on time while getting ready--can I say I love IKEA? There is a place for her hairbrush on top of her jewelry box. All of which she can now reach & still see the mirror pretty well.
notice the cool chair from IKEA--no back so nothing to hang on the back & get her in trouble & the shape makes it less stacking friendly so she isn't stacking crap on it any more & pissing off her dad. We also bought both kids trash cans & dirty clothes storage. Let's hope even part of what we've done works.

We are purging like nuts, furniture posted on Craigslist. Books posted on playgroup website & 8 already gone, an entire box of books to get rid of from the personal library online. More to come book wise possibly--be impressed that there are any. We are going to sell them online as I look for a good bunch to do the whole online book selling thing.

Recycling went gangbusters today:
The beer bottles are partially from a party a couple of weeks ago & 2 weeks of Charlie + some others drinking. We are going to offer them to a friend who homebrews some really tasty beer. I'm just glad it's a little more organized than it was.

So I didn't get the ebay bid.

But I don't mind. I felt like myself for the first time in such a very long time. Why, you say? Once upon a time, I took risks. It wasn't just impulse control issues. I saw something, evaluated the situation & did what I wanted. No regrets. Then I started not taking so many risks & the next thing I knew. Bang, impulse control, what's that? Big red button. Push it quick! See what happens. Regrets galore.

I feel like I can breathe again. Everything until very recently has been stifling & smothering & I felt like I couldn't breathe. But now I can.

Not that it was what fixed me, but it was the first humongous sign that things were getting better. There were other clues. But this was a definite sign. From me, not from on high.

So, yeah me.

My beautiful earth mama in training

So my friend Stephanie from playgroup took the most amazing picture of my daughter, Nat. It shows her in her element. I think they are examining a caterpillar. She loves to go to playgroup & spend time with her "tribe." Being with the kiddos empowers her & gives her more confidence than I would have ever thought. When she is being negative, I can say to her: "Don't you think you are good at relating to your tribe & playing with them?" She answers "yeah, I'm pretty good with them." more often than not. She has been having confidence issues for a while now. I'm glad there is something so positive that she can say, "yeah, I'm good at that." The only thing as good as a baby in my arms is watching my daughter with one in hers. But I am so relieved that she is so not ready for one of her own. That would freak me out.

best knitting project ever

This is the best knitting project I have ever seen. Not because it is technically perfect. But because it makes me all weepy & proud. This is Nat's first Finished project (pre sewing the tail). It is a WarmUp America Square. It is so beautiful. Go, baby girl! Your mother couldn't be prouder!!!!!!!!!!

craftomatic 5000

Today is for the posting of the projects per Kira's request (this one's for you girl).

Gwen's peace dragon dress. My first stranding multicolor big project. I had to take two patterns to figure out the dress part too--I am so proud. Yeah me. I had a blast thinking this one out. I love the fact that I am now understanding what I am doing enough to look at a pattern & morph it.











Then there is the balaclava helmet I knitted up for himself as a father's day gift out of peace fleece wool. Yeah, hippie art!!!!!!! Woohoo. Peace Fleece is made from a blend of Russian, Romanian, American, Israeli and Palestinian wools. Way cool. The only thing better than this picture to the right of me is this next one below.






This is why I love my kids being mine. In a nutshell. They can't pose for a simple picture without getting creative. We had to take a half a dozen pix to get it figured out. S'okay. Time spent with my little man isn't a waste. Even if I was supposed to be cleaning when I took the pix.



I will have to post some old pix with comments another day. Because I am still supposed to be cleaning.