today connor had his first private fencing lesson. 

he's been taking group lessons once a week for a month now.

he really enjoys it, and the people are nice.

fletcher tends to get bored though, and i haven't yet been able to bring myself to just drop con off for an hour. so this is what fletch does for most of the time.

today i thought he picked an interesting spot to camp himself.

catherine pointed out to me today that if her son wanted fencing lessons, her reply would have to be, "well, we can go to the store and buy you a plastic sword..."

i am becoming more and more grateful to be living in this huge city.

and the more i think about it, the more i think i'll never want to leave. 

I feel the earth! move!

except that I really don't. the boys and I completely missed the earthquake today because we were walking to the park. (apparently one does not feel a quake when one is walking). they were totally bummed.

while everyone is talking about it, we are all fine here on the west side and nothing fell over or anything like that. some people are a bit freaked out, but it's hard to feel worried when I didn't feel anything! although I confess I've been looking thru the food storage today and thinking, "maybe we could use some more of this and that...."

*photo courtesy of the internet. not actually from here or from this quake. :)

San Diego Comic Con 2008
(thursday)

4:15 a.m. - drag self out of bed
5:15 a.m. - drop kids off at Betsey's house (she and Eric watched our kids for 19 hours straight. I'm pretty sure I owe her free babysitting with no paybacks for the rest of my life)
5:45 a.m. - arrive at Union Station. Get interviewed by some bubbly blonde from KTLA. Hope they decide not to actually air my segment.
6:05 a.m - board train
7:15 a.m - listen to driver announce that the Interstate is closed, and that the train might be a bit full today. Slap high fives all around for taking the train this year.
8:00 a.m. - point to my dress and say how there's no way craig will lose me this year. He responds with "Are you kidding? You'll blend right in with that geekouflage."
9:30 a.m - arrive at the Con. Slap fives all around as we walk past the thousands of people in line and go straight for professional registration.
when I was taking this guy(girl?)'s picture, someone walking behind me shouted hatefully, "Toaster!"
that is what makes it all worth it, people.

this was as close as I could get to Stan Lee - and I had my zoom on as close as it would go and my arm reaching above the crowd. A man was next to us on the phone, "Dude, I am standing like 10 feet away from the guy who created Spider Man!"
I heart fanboys.

i have no idea what this robot is from or why it was at the con. but it looked cool.

again with the "it looked cool." However this looked so cool that I googled "Jane and the Dragon" so I could learn more about it. I will certainly be reading/watching this!

Hannah wore her pedometer just for fun. At the end of the day (but before we walked to dinner. then to dessert. then to the train station) it said 7 miles. eek! no wonder my feet are STILL sore!
a sweet treat from Ghiradelli to sustain us on our long train ride home.

not surprisingly, i fell asleep on the train back. I was so ready to get my kids and curl up in a big huggy ball with them and snooze until noon the next morning. (which, haha. they woke up at 7:30, just like every other day)

awesome swag. the boys were in heaven. 364 days to recover. whew!

The Dress

I decided at first to use this pattern.

The long view, with short sleeves and no collar. I wanted to do the top v shape in the contrast fabric, and below-the-bustline in the comic fabric.

And then I got my contrasting fabric.


And then I changed my mind and decided to use this pattern. (both patterns happen to be from 1971. I'm consistent like that.)

The center view. Turns out the white contrast is not a pattern piece, but "braid trim". Ha. So I used black bias tape for the sides and I used polka dot for the sleeves.

And here's how it turned out!


And here are the shoes Nan found for me! I tried on something like 20 pairs of shoes in the search for the perfect one. I kept trying on yellow shoes, and Nanette kept saying "But they aren't red."


Compliments at Comic Con - 22 (yah, I totally counted), including one large black man who pointed at me as he walked by unsmiling and said, "I want a dress like that!"

glee!

if you know me, you know that i am a fan of Joss Whedon.  he has recently, along with many other awesome-type folks, put together this blog/show for online viewing only.  here's a link, for those of you with any sense of humor at all: Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog.

part 1 of the three parts is up now, and the rest will come up through the week.  enjoy!  i sure did. 

Summer = Boring.
(at least for my readers)

Whenever I go for more than a couple of days without posting, and
without having any "planned posting" coming up, I usually start trying
to think of something fun and funny and interesting that I can put up
just so my blog does not feel neglected and so my relatives don't
start emailing me asking if I've died. (you know who you are)

But I've got nothing, people! It's been "park, beach, zoo, repeat"
here, which is great for us but less interesting for you. I was
supposed to get a rocking awesome picture of our new "entertainment
center" on Saturday but they didn't have it ready for us after all
which led to annoyance and bad feelings and now we can't pick it up
until NEXT Saturday..

saw Hellboy II on Saturday and it was cute (yes. really. "cute") but
not awesome.

have lots of projects to do but haven't actually worked on anything
for days and days.

so, i'll get on that... (just took my singer in to be serviced!) and see ya around!

i got this fabric off of ebay for the express purpose of making a dress for Comic Con with it. I tried to find some zipotone for contrast fabric, but to my current knowledge, such a thing does not exist. i joined spoonflower this morning in the hopes of designing my own fabric, but it's looking like i won't be able to get anything from them for quite some time.

so, i'll have to find just the right polka dot. i've got a few patterns that I think will work, time to pick my fav.

yay!

the smallest of these two pequena y caliente chicas had the brilliant idea of going to the park for a picnic today. it was perfect weather for it. we were headed for a much prettier spot, but the young folk got distracted by ducks so we had to park ourselves front and center at the "lake" at Kenneth Hahn park.


fletcher pondered the majesty of that thing known as easy cheese. yuk.

connor tried hard to not be cute. he tried to be scary and threatening. it really, really didn't work for me. the little puppy.
also there were ducks. who, as it turned out, were not much interested in the bread.

but then these 3 teenage girls who were sitting nearby started throwing chips at the ducks, and it was mayhem! Duck Mayhem! one of the girls actually got bit, although she was fine. the other two kept a respectful distance. there was an appropriate amount of girly squealing in the process.
thank you, small and cute one, for the great picnic idea!

we have been largely furniture-less for the past month, looking for a new entertainment center and bookshelves. you know, something that is not 3rd hand and falling apart and hideous.

on saturday my neighbor told us about this warehouse less than a block away from us that carries furniture (not couches, mind you, nothing with fabric on it) and it's all antique-y and original looking (their tag is "furniture with soul").

craig said, "isn't that place way expensive?" but we went anyway, because it was close.

and it was fabulous! i wanted to buy half the store. there were no bookshelves that were just perfect but i found a hutch thing that will suit really nicely for an entertainment center (we're picking it up this saturday) and we also fell in love with this piece, which we really weren't looking for at all but i HAD been wanting another "chair" eventually:

i can't help it! i think it's fabulous! the thing's older than dirt, and broken in places, and this hideous green painted design has been half-sanded off the front parts. but i love it. I'm going to make a cushion for it, and some pillows. craig calls it "the conan throne".

also, it's a trunk. do you see that darker spot in the upper left corner inside there? that's the spot i cleaned before i took the picture. took me almost 10 minutes to wash 6 square inches. and my rag was crusted with mud. this baby is DIRTY!

Yay!

you have to imagine this conversation just the right way. imagine me with my face buried in a pillow, one leg hanging off the bed. i'm awake, and i know i'll stay that way, but i'm going to be unhappy about it for awhile longer.

now imagine him, all excited about having a day off, standing by the side of the bed, periodically nudging me with a fist, and having a demeanor not unlike a golden retriever puppy.

here you go:

Him: What's for breakfast?

Me: Cereal

Him: I don't want cereal. Make me waffles!

Me: I made you waffles two days ago. I don't want waffles.

Him: .... Well - fine! I'll make my own waffles!

Me: You do that.

clarification: "him" was not one of my kids.



Kudos on the waffles, dear. Very festive. And scrumptious.

this is the result of my first foray into photoshop. it's not a fantastic picture, but i am pleased with the changes i made and with the things i learned*. i'd love to show you the original photo, but for some reason blogger keeps entering it sideways and it was causing me serious high blood pressure.

*thanks for the tutorial, honey.

Christmas at the Mailbox

catherine used to always say that when people got boxes at the mail when we all lived in wymount. ah, how i do miss those cinder-block walls.

ha! i lie! i do not miss them at ALL!

ahem. box 1:
i'm getting ready to teach a beginning quilting class, and when i told my mom what pattern i was going to use, she said, "hey, i've got a couple of quilt tops in that. i'll send them to you."

well, thanks Mom!

aaaand, BOX 2! :

oooh oooooooohhhhhh!
wow, thanks Marianne! i instantly stuck a piece of gum in my mouth (still chewing, dang this stuff is potent!), painted my thumbnail "pretty in pink" and then smudged my polish while looking thru the fabulous magazine.

it's funny - i found a vintage metal bucket nearly the same shape as the one she sent me, to put her stuff in. it was a hard thing not keeping that bucket for myself. and you see, selflessness is rewarded!

of to be diligent. my apartment has not seen "diligent kristen" in far, far too long.

i went back to Pepe's Thrift Shop yesterday to 1) see if they had any awesome furniture that needed to be purchased (they didn't) and 2) see if I could find an awesome container to put my stuff in for the swap (I could). once again with me and the photo-idiotica, I did not take any pictures of the package I put together for my swap partner, but I was so thrilled with what I found! Hopefully she likes it and if you are dying of curiosity maybe she'll take a photo when she gets it.

on a side note: she totally posted a photo of the stuff she's sending to me. i can hardly stand it, i'm so excited.

while I was meandering around the 10 ft stacks of furniture and knick-knacks, I stumbled across this set of 4 glass bottles. 3 of them looked like they had junk inside that would never come out in a million years. but this one (above) was mostly clean and I simply had to have it.

can you see what it says there? "shasta water" as in, that shasta. this is the place craig and i went on one of our first dates. (snowboarding. i um, really suck at it) he proposed to me in the shadow of this mountain. just a little sentimental value, here.

the neck of the bottle is just tiny, so i can't really put anything into it, except maybe a couple of flowers. but that's pretty much perfect.

*happiness!*