The other mom couldn’t do it (for a very good reason) and I am just not up to running a meeting, so I cancelled Brownies for today. We’ll meet again in December.
“I want to share my Halloween candy with the tooth fairy!”
So last night I took some Sudafed. As it turned out, some Sudafed which had expired by a fair amount. It was not kind to my stomach, and I’m still feeling a little fallout today.
Today, Emily’s school is having their Thanksgiving lunch. Parents are invited to come up and sit with their kids during lunch, and they’ll have a special lunch available for a couple of bucks. I was really hoping she wouldn’t care about this, but this morning:
Me: I think today’s your Thanksgiving lunch, and some parents may come up to the school. But my stomach’s really not feeling good, so I don’t think I’ll be able to come. Is that okay?
Her: No.
Me: Wait. So you want me to come up for lunch?
Her: Yes.
Okay, then, I’ll be there! As is so often the case, I love that she’s being more engaged, but… why today? Well, parenting isn’t about convenience, I suppose.
Tonight is Brownies. We’re moving next week’s meeting up to this week due to the holidays. Another mom has volunteered to run the meeting. Yesterday Emily said she didn’t want to go to Brownies, but last night she asked if we were going to be doing a specific craft that she saw a picture of last week. Nope, tonight we’re working on the Careers badge. “We’re not making anything?”
I’ll make a crafter of her yet.
Speaking of craft, the first Vinnland is done. One foot down, one to go.
I’ve dug out a fair number of superhero graphic novels – Superman stuff, some of Joss Whedon’s X-Men stuff but I know I’ve got more floating arond. I have more Vertigo titles than I thought. I didn’t remember that. Go figure. I’ll post them up when I get a chance. I’m not sure what to do with the individual comics. I’ve got a complete run of Sandman, and also of the original Star Wars comics from Marvel, plus assorted stuff from the 80’s – Elfquest, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing under Alan Moore… they didn’t do compilations back then, but I’m sure it’s been put out in a single format since. I also need to decide whether I want to get rid of my Concrete stuff. Paul Chadwick’s work is just so pretty. I’m torn.
Okay, gonna go try to eat something.
I think a family of tribbles has moved into my head. I feel fuzzy and stuffy, with a lot of pressure behind my eyes. I slept until after noon today, and I feel like I could go back to sleep anytime and not wake up until tomorrow. Thankfully Emily is wanting to play by herself a lot today, and Steve is, as always, a super dad so he’s being sure she gets some quality time with him.
The next hat in the queue is for a baby. I know that my germs wouldn’t travel with the hat, but I’m a mom, so I’m paranoid. That hat can wait for a day or so. The baby isn’t here yet, so there’s time.
When I’m doing baby hats, I like to use a different yarn than Lamb’s Pride. Baby heads can be delicate. I had thought Karabella Aurora 8, but the only orange I could find in person or on the Karabella color card was traffic-cone orange, and I don’t want the parents’ retinas to burn out while they’re looking at their child. So here’s Karabella Aurora Bulky. The orange is a little more melon than my usual orange, but still within the realm of acceptable. And like all the Aurora yarns, this 100% wool is incredibly soft and machine washable. Both very desirable features in baby clothing!
I’m looking forward to getting started on it. In the meantime, since Emily took over my spot on the couch, I’m back in bed with a Chloraseptic “relief strip” on the back of my tongue. Those things work great. I may knit some on my socks, but usually when I work on them tired, I tend to screw up somewhere. So we’ll see.
I did manage to get a few things photographed yesterday to go up on eBay (unless someone’s interested) so maybe I’ll try to get some of that listed too.
Actually, the longer I lie here, the more I think I may just go to sleep.
It’s been a rough couple of days. Yesterday there was construction in front of our house all day. No big deal, but when they started digging up our front yard at about 8:30 last night, we went out to ask what was going on. Some water pipe up the street had been cracked by tree roots, so they were digging around, trying to locate the shutoff to the water main with varying degrees of success. Well, not much to be done for that. And I felt for the poor guys, it was cold out there.
Somehow that “shut off the water” part of what they told us didn’t quite sink in until we tried to turn on the water at about 10pm and realized it was off. Fortunately, we had some fresh water already, enough for brushing teeth and for flushing the toilet should it be necessary. We hoped it would be on by morning, since Emily’s never known life without water.
About 1am last night, I woke up feeling terrible. I could still see the flashing lights of the water truck outside. I sat on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, saying little prayers. “Please don’t let me get sick when we have no water in the house. Pleeeeease don’t let me get sick with no water in the house.” Thankfully, those prayers were answered. And the water was back on this morning. You can bet your keister that I am not taking piped-in water for granted today. I feel very fortunate to live in a country where I can just turn a magic knob and clean water flows into my home. Amazing.
Today, I have a scratchy throat and feel awful, but in an entirely different way. Looks like I’m getting a cold. It wasn’t a big day for me to run around and do fun things to blog about, so instead I’ll share with you one from last weekend.
Emily’s been more active and engaged lately, wanting to hang out outside and asking odd questions like, “what does the skeleton of your teeth look like?”
Late last week we went outside, even though frankly I wanted to stay in. There are some little purple wildflowers growing near the outdoor spigot, and Emily looked at them, then looked around some more.
Emily: Isn’t it beautiful?
Me: What, sweetie?
Emily: Everything outside!
Good point, sugar. My mood lifted. Sometimes it just takes a shift in perspective to stop us from taking things for granted.
Here’s a picture of my girl up in a tree. Life is good.
Several people asked, so here’s a partial list.
We had two new girls join us, so we’re up to seven girls total now. They seem quite nice. A bit quiet, but that’s to be expected when you’re joining an already established group.
We made our dolls. Emily finished hers first, and hers also looked the most like mine. I should have anticipated that when I made an example. She stayed fairly calm when she was having trouble, and I was able to stick close to help when she asked for it. We had a range of creations, including marbled chocolate cake with candles, and tree sculpture including monkey.
Then we used the lantern I previously mentioned. We didn’t have s’mores. We had s’mores flavor Pop Tarts. We turned on the lantern and turned out the lights, then passed out Pop Tarts as we sat around our ‘campfire.’ I asked them what their favorite thing they saw on our nature walk through the mountains was. They made up stuff they’d seen, and we told stories, including this strange but true story of a kamakazi cow (cowmakazi?) falling off a cliff onto a minivan. It was a successful camping trip.
All around, a good meeting. Emily’s decompressing some and eating pizza while playing MySims on the wii. After she’s had a couple of slices, we’ll do homework. Then she’ll want a bath (she wants one every night now) and it’ll be bedtime. What a full day!
I will give a free hat to the first Browncoat from this town to ask, just for get the pleasure of sending something there. So totally worth it.
In today’s girl scout meeting, we’ll be finishing up business from last meeting’s try-it patch. We ran out of time to do s’mores. S’mores presents a challenge in a classroom. One of our girls is bringing a lantern, and we’re going to try to melt chocolate over it. I like her ingenuity. Fortunately, I like all three ingredients in s’mores, so it’ll be tasty no matter the outcome.
We’ll also be working on the “Puppets, Dolls, and Play” badge. I picked up some craft foam from Michael’s craft store, and we’ll be making cunning little puppets with holes cut out for our fingers to be legs. Note picture to the right of the sample I made to be sure it worked. I didn’t want to make it too fancy, because I don’t want the girls to make themselves nuts. I just wanted to try it out and show them one method. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with.
Wearwithstyle is again open for business. My hand is tender when touched, but I can knit just fine. So, hopefully knit night tonight, unless I get too tired. I missed last week, so I hope to make it out tonight!
So, so tired. And Brownies today.
I shoulda taken a nap.
ETA: More bead pics in new subfolder.
I’m trying to de-clutter my home. I’m fighting a lot of longstanding tendencies of mine in doing this. Don’t throw things away, they might be useful/valuable at some point. Or they have sentimental value, but only the tiniest shred. (My mother warned me when Emily started preschool, you can’t save every piece of paper or you’ll be drowning in it. She was right.)
A lot of these things, I’ve kept around because I knew they’d get some cash on eBay, if I ever got around to putting them up. Note that last phrase. They’re never going to get put up. I just don’t have the time.
So I just donated a bunch of books to the library (WAA! BOOKS LEAVING MY HOUSE!) and I’ve got a bunch more graphic novels to go. Nice stuff. I hope it makes it into their collection, but if it winds up on the 25-cent book rack, that’s fine too. It’s out of my house.
The problem, of course, is that the clutter is so advanced. The library got a big cardboard box of books that had been awaiting eBay while sitting on the floor of the dining room. And you can’t tell one iota of difference in there.
I saw someone post recently that losing clutter is like losing weight. For a while, it looks like absolutely nothing is happening. You’ve just got to keep plugging away. That’s a very motivating analogy.
So. Graphic novels, comics, books, yarn (this will probably go up for sale on ravelry), beading magazines and beads (here if you want to call dibs on something), clothes which I haven’t fit into for so long they’re nearly vintage, and much more. It’s gotta go. I might post up some stuff for, like, the cost of shipping plus PayPal fees, but then again, I might just donate it. Or even trash it, although that pains me mightily. I can’t have stuff sitting in the “donate” pile forever.
On a completely related note, my in-laws are coming over this weekend. I wonder how much of this stuff I can jam into the dryer until they leave…