Productivity

the apartment gets unavoidably messy when I have projects to work on.
dh grits his teeth and bears it. Mostly.

hoping to sell a couple of these tonight at our little Christmas bazaar. I've never sold anything that I made before. Hopefully that will change soon!

Pronouns

CONNOR: Did "blank" do the dishes after dinner? Um... he. (begins to write) Oh, no wait, she.
ME: Why did you change it from he to she Connor?
CONNOR: (in his "obvious" voice) Mom, because that's the ladies job!

I did the throwing my hands in the air and stomping around dramatically aghast - and then he drops another one:
"Well that's what Dad says....."

Grateful Journal

Emily put together this awesome Giving Thanks Journal (here), and I really loved it and thought I would try it out. Not being the scrapbooking wizard that she is I don't have nearly as many cool bits to use in mine but it was super-fun running around the apartment and snitching bits of paper and stuff from the kids and from old books and from craig's art desk.

I've only managed to get 30 pages so far - but that gives me 30 weeks before I have to get more.

now I need to number the pages, 1-7 (one week per page, one grateful item per day) , and I'll be done!

I would love to show you actual, adult-taken photos of our Thanksgiving. But Nanette and Hannah have not sent me the photos from their cameras, so once again I must resort to relying on the photo-skills of my 3 year old son.

Craig and I are not pictured. The ones he got of us were even scarier than his self portrait down there. :)

It was so much fun, and the food was good and the curtains got done and I wish that it was not a normal day again so soon.

more fletcher pix

i love seeing the world through a 3 year old's eyes. i love plugging in my camera and finding 30 shots that i did not know were there. i love that some of them are pretty good, and that most of them are of himself.

i tried and tried to get a pic of the new rat a few weeks back and could NOT get one to turn out. he managed it without even trying.
NIMH: i got your back, Sunflower.
no really.
i got it.

ta-da!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We did our thanksgiving turkey late this year - but he's been up since Monday so at least we'll have a week of "grateful feathers" to make for him. Craig went for the turkey-in-the-headlights look this year.

This is my "garden". Which basically means that I had a few empty pots and wanted to fill them before companycame tomorrow. I bought bushes instead of flowers because I kill everything. My ficus tree is miraculously alive after spending all of spring and summer dying a slow and painful death. The other big pot hosts a mini rose bush (a gift after my car crash). Any mini-rose-bush-keeping-alive tips?


i'm afraid my pots are already too small for these....whatever they are. I love the pink and green verugated (sp?) leaves though.
Proves that pink and green DO look good together. Craig.

spent almost 3 hours up at Kenneth Hahn state park yesterday afternoon. It's been awhile since we've gotten out and relaxed - it felt so good! Here's Felice and her cute Phoebe, who was not interested in smiling just then.

"Snake Mountain" in the background.

A bit of Tuesday:

blogger is having some photo-upload-issues so this is all I can get for now. Above: that's as far as I got on my curtains yesterday. I feel that the messy heap of fabric correctly channels my end-of-day-ness. :) Evenings have been a bit gross for me this week and I can feel my production slipping a bit. Hopefully today I will be able to get-it-all-done for tomorrow.

Below: This one is for Catherine, who used to always complain when I cut Craig's hair that it was "just getting long enough". Well, it's longer now than it's ever been. (that's not his fist - it's Fletcher's, who insisted in being in the photo somehow) We were joking around one day about the things we needed to do - being exercize for both of us and a haircut for him, and he managed to declare that he won't cut his hair until he's lost the weight he wants to lose.

i keep sabotaging him because i'm enjoying the curls. :)

No pictures for this post:

Got my Fri/Sat lists done -

grocery shopping
shampoo carpets
cleaned out my fridge
re-organized our balcony

CHECK
CHECK
CHECK
CHECK

can i just say that I'm feeling pretty awesome about myself?

Craig and I had a hot date last night. I managed to totally ruin it by getting very-nearly-violently-ill in the middle of dinner. NOOO! We were at The Cheesecake Factory! So not fair!
But I'm better now and went to church and everything. We'll have to go back before the season is over so i can try the pumpkin pecan cheesecake.

MMMMMM.

How to: Bath Salts
I was in charge of teaching the ladies at Enrichment how to make bath salts for their "spa bags" the other night. It's super simple. You will need:

Rock Salt, Food color, Essential Oil. I used 3 tbs. of Salt because that is what fit into my little boxes. Then add Two drops of food coloring and one/two drops of scented oil.

Stir. Spoon into cute box. (Betsey found these for me in the wedding aisle at JoAnne)

See how cute! This is the one I made the other day:

Late Post: Yesterday's List

Master bedroom: CHECK (thank goodness) no picture for you - it's clean but i'm an awful decorator and it's not worth the memory card space.
I did NOT get chair pads sewn; decided i was not GOING to sew them, and that my guests' bums on TG day can just be happy in plastic chairs.
Mailed my registration for Linda Ballard's quilt retreat in Weaverville in April (eeeeeee!)
Did no work on the nightgown.
What did I do all day? (because really, the MB wasnt' that bad)

I did this:

I went through magazines for HOURS yesterday! These are the ones i STILL have to go through. I think I threw away about 15 of them. Yikes.

Countdown, Day 2
got the empire elastic done on the nightgown. noticed that neckline elastic will need to be tightened, and armholes let out.

The List.

Enrichment shopping. CHECK. Went out at 7 a.m. and picked up materials for Cookie-Mix-Jars and bath salts. Lugged all the bags to the church. Hardly anyone showed up who signed up. Lugged it all back home.
Yuk.

Made the Fall Leaves Wreath. CHECK.

Taught Preschool. CHECK. "I is for igloo. And Ice Cream." Oh, yeah.

Made a TG tablecloth for the kids' table - my table won't fit all 11 of us. CHECK

Close up of tablecloth.

I am pathetically proud of myself for what I accomplished today. I had so much organizing and typing and printing to do for Enrichment tonight and I had to get dinner made early and then pick up dh from work before I could go - and I managed to go to Enrichment in a skirt and makeup instead of my sweaty cutoffs and star wars tee.

and my apartment is getting cleaner every day.

my secret? haven't touched a book for several days. and I've stayed away from the computer.

now? i'm going to bed.

The Thanksgiving Countdown begins! 9 days left and a long list - So I'm taking baby steps. Today's List:

Toys: CHECK!

Don't worry, I didn't toss the arsenal. It's just amazing to me that 2 boys need 4 lightsabers and 10 swords. Eeesh.

Bleached the chairs that've been sitting on our balcony for months. (we'll need these for TG Dinner. 11 people!) CHECK!
Looks like I'll manage to keep the place picked up today too! CHECK!

Done steps 1 & 2 on the nightgown; shoulder seams and gathered neckline.

All of the elastic on this pattern is encased in bias tape - as are the raw inside seams at the armholes and bottom ruffle. I've never made anything before that had such attention to.... i dunno.....prettiness. It makes me happy. *grin*

and on a sidenote: 4 more pinecones collected this week.

What We're Doing Today

After we dropped off dh at work this morning, me and the boys headed over to McLaughlin (the best autumn street in west l.a.) and picked up a bagfull of leaves. Now they are drying out a little and we'll make a wreath this afternoon. Yay! Fall at my house!
Yes I'll post pictures.
No I haven't finished my nightgown yet.
No I have not been writing much, stop asking!

Also, this was a momentous outing in that Connor and Fletcher both decided to change their names. Fletcher was walking along the sidewalk, talking on his hand/phone with friend Venom, and when he hung up he laughed and said, "He called me Thunder mom! So I guess that's my name now." and insisted that Connor and I refer to him as such.
Then Connor got all wistful and said that he wished he'd been named Max.
Max and Thunder it is.

More Wasting Time : But then, This One was Worth It.
I mean, my car is named Buffy (much to my husband's chagrin) and my friends dubbed me "most likely to carry a stake in her purse."

It was meant to be :)

You Are Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"We saved the world. I say we have to party."

What Superheroine Are You?

Old and Boring Ways to Waste Time

You Are Storm

Exotic and powerful, Storm descended from a line of African priestesses. Emotions can effect your powers, but you are generally serene. Powers: controlling weather, creating winds that lift you into flight, generating lightning

Which of the X-Men Are You?

New Jammies!

got this pattern off of ebay last week. I want to make myself a nightgown and i thought something vintage might manage to have sleeves -
I'm going to make the long view, and also the bathrobe. I haven't had a bathrobe since I was about 10! Here are the fabrics below:

white muslin for the gown (kinda jane austin-ey, dontcha think?) and green and white toille flannel for the robe. and some great vintage-look buttons.
I'll post pictures when I'm done!

Yep, I'm doing it again.