3 to get ready...

Back to school

2008-08-11T19:43:00.001-05:00

Hattie's First Day of Kindergarten
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

It's official -- as of today all of our kids are in elementary school. I celebrated my first day of having no kids around by, um, wasting a lot of time. Well, I did do some things, but not as much as I would have liked. But now I have tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day....really, it's staggering.

Hattie jumped right on that big old bus like she was born on it. Everyone had a good day at school, and they were in bed by 7:50 pm. I could get used to this.

And in case anyone's experiencing a little deja vu when looking at this picture, it might be because Charlotte wore this same dress for her first day of kindergarten last year.

Happy first day of school!

A little sprucing up

2008-07-15T10:23:00.010-05:00

So our swimming lessons were canceled at the last minute this morning and I found myself with two extra hours of time. Did I get an early start on cleaning the house, which I had planned to do after the lessons and lunch? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Instead, while looking through my recent pictures for some now-forgotten reason, I happened across this shot of the kids in the surf at Jekyll Island last month and suddenly realized that it might be a good candidate for a new banner. Not that I needed one or anything, seeing as the previous one had been good since a year ago this past spring.

So after about an hour of futzing around with it, I have a new banner! Which will be appropriate for approximately the next month, maybe two if I really milk it.

And because I haven't taken very many pictures lately, here's one of Tim at the grave of golfing legend Bobby Jones on our recent tour of Oakland Cemetery. Tim looks appropriately somber here, maybe because he's standing at a gravesite, but maybe also because it was raining.

The tour, however, was FANTASTIC. Very informative and interesting, especially to Atlanta residents. And not hurt at all by several pints and a couple of calamari tacos which we had directly afterwards at the pub/fish house Six Feet Under across the street. Where Tim, his sister, and I got to sit WITH THE TOUR GUIDE, who regaled us with story after story. It was the most fun we've had in a very long time.

Not sure what that says about us, that the most fun we've had lately was a trip to a cemetery in the rain, but whatever.

...and we're back

2008-06-17T14:48:00.002-05:00

Jekyll Island
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Let's see if I can remember how this blog-thing works.

I know it's been a while, but we've been busy with end of school, swim team, and a trip to Jekyll Island. Then in less than two weeks we'll be hosting a party for Tim's department at work, approximately 45 people. I have a list of things to do that's about a mile long, so of course I'm putting it off, since that makes the most sense right now.

We spent several days last week on Jekyll Island in Coastal Georgia. It was a nice break, and with the exception of not being able to find anywhere to eat, very relaxing. I've got the whole set over here. I'd have to say the turtle walk and riding our bikes on the beach were the highlights.

In other recent exciting news, Hattie graduated from preschool, and Charlotte joined the swim team.

Nate, of course, is an old hand at this swim team thing.

After this party is over, I'm envisioning relaxing days spent doing crafts with the kids, practicing our reading and writing, and touching up the already clean house before I whip up a delicious and nutritious dinner. Needless to say, barely any of that is happening right now. For example, if I could find our kitchen table, I would clean it off. But I can't, so I guess I'll go to the grocery store instead.

Spring Break

2008-04-27T11:31:00.003-05:00

Well, it took me a few weeks, but I finally found the time to go through and upload the pictures from our Spring Break trip to St. Louis. We drove up with my mom and spent almost a week there, enjoying the sights and the gracious hospitality of my aunt and uncle.

But now we're back to reality. Things here have been ridiculously busy -- we spent several hours yesterday at the ball fields watching the kids play soccer and baseball, and we're babysitting our baby niece for the next few days as well. Four kids, a whole slew of activities, and a dryer on the fritz have made it a pretty interesting week.

If I can hold out for another month, it will be summer break, and then things should ease up. In theory, at least.

Right now we're enjoying a lazy, rainy Sunday. Just the kind of day to curl up on the couch. If anyone was inclined to do that sort of thing....

Soccer and quilts

2008-03-20T21:42:00.006-05:00

Today Charlotte played in her first soccer game of the season. But even more importantly, it was the first organized sporting event she's ever played in. It was great to see her running up and down the field and having a great time.

When she was 9 months old but had the gross motor capability of an 8-week-old, and then when she was 2 and a half and incapable of walking, we didn't even want to think about what she'd be doing at 6. Now, years of therapy and effort later, we've come farther than we'd ever dared to hope. It's really miraculous, and we are incredibly, unbelievably thankful that she's doing so well.

There are a couple more pictures here.

In other, less cataclysmic, news, I went to a quilt show on Sunday. It was held at Bulloch Hall in Roswell, which was a beautiful place to have it. I'd been meaning to visit Bulloch Hall for a while now, mostly because of its historical significance as the childhood home of Teddy Roosevelt's mother. Sunday was the last day of the show, and since no one else wanted to go, I went by myself. I'm not a quilter, but I do love quilts. Especially ones that look like they could have been made in past centuries. So I went and took several photos of the ones I liked. This one was particularly striking:

but there were lots of quilts that were beautifully done and which also appealed to me with their vintage-y aesthetic.

Very inspirational. Even though my personal quilting experience has been limited to making quillows for my kids, maybe it's enough to make me take another look at the beautiful quilt tops my great aunts made in Illinois during the Depression. It would be great to have them finished. And the embroidered ones look fun.

That's what I need -- to add a couple of quilts to my ridiculously long project list. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right, Charlotte?

What's for dinner?

2008-03-02T17:22:00.004-05:00

Way back at the beginning of the school year, when I was feeling all dutiful and volunteer-y, I signed up to be "Playdough Mom" for Hattie's class for the month of March. Sure, I thought. How hard can it be?

Well now it's 5 p.m. on the Sunday before I have to send in 5 batches of homemade green playdough, and I'm feeling significantly less volunteer-y than I did all those months ago.

Nevertheless, since my alternative was to get busy with eleventy-billion loads of wash that need doing (seriously folks, we're all scrounging for clean underwear) (well, except for me since I recently bought myself a WHOLE BUNCH of underwear in case of just such an emergency), I applied myself to the playdough task.

I was about halfway through when it occurred to me to document it, so that's where we'll start. To give you a little background, first you throw everything into a large pot, then you turn on the heat and stir. For all you're worth. And stir. And stir. And stir some more. My honest thought when I was doing this was, this is worse than risotto!

Anyhoo, eventually you end up with this:

a bilious green wad. Doesn't it look great? Especially since I did it during the time when I would normally be making dinner. So we may have to make alternate dinner plans. More on that later.

Then you're supposed to turn it out and knead until smooth. It made such a huge wad that I included the bananas here for scale.

So you knead and knead. Which actually wasn't all that bad. I expected it to be like yeast dough and stick all over everywhere. However some chemist must have done their homework when writing this recipe, because it didn't stick anywhere, just like playdough! Whaddayaknow? This is also the stage where you pick out all the white lumps of flour that didn't get incorporated, just so you know.

Then shape into a frog-shaped wad. No wait, that's just me. You're glad I told you it was a frog, aren't you? I know, it's a stretch. I obviously never progressed beyond the kindergarten level in sculpting.

Then insert finished playdough into school-approved container for transportation to preschool. What this picture doesn't convey is that this bag of playdough weighs approximately 10 pounds. Well, maybe not 10, but close to it. Or maybe it is 10. Too heavy for a 4-year-old to carry in her schoolbag, anyway.

Okay, now on to clean-up. Thankfully this little project didn't make too many dirty dishes, but the ones I did use are pretty yucky. So I'll put them in the dishwasher.

Hang on! Where's the dishwasher?? OH, that's right. A week ago Thursday our 25-year-old dishwasher gave up the ghost, and the guy who came to put in our new one (on Friday night at 5 pm) was stymied by those little boards on the floor in the corner. See, it seems that even though all dishwashers are a standard size on the front, they're not all the same in the back. And our old one had a slight overhang that wasn't bothered by those boards, whereas our new one (with the super-tall tub that I was so looking forward to using for more than 4 plates at a time) needs all that space.

Apparently those boards are both nailed into the slab and providing stability to the cabinet, and we're going to need a cabinet guy to come deal with it. I actually did talk to some dispatcher-type lady on Saturday morning, but it seems that cabinet guys are pretty smart and don't answer their phones on Saturdays when the dispatcher-type lady calls them. She said she'd try again on Monday.

So here's the new dishwasher. In the garage. For the weekend. With its front towards the shelves, in an effort to protect it from things like that soccer ball there.

And we're probably going to have to order dinner out again like we have ~~many~~ all of the past several nights, because a) we don't have a dishwasher and b) I used the dinner-making time to make playdough.
________________________________________

In case anyone's interested, here's the playdough recipe:

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
food coloring

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat. Stir constantly until mixture forms a ball. Knead until smooth. Store in a covered container.

Oh yes, and if you're making enough for 16 preschoolers, you will need to QUINTUPLE this recipe. Not a typo. Have fun!

School Valentines

2008-02-11T17:21:00.001-05:00

One of our projects this weekend was making Valentines for the kids' classmates. I can't take credit for this incredible idea -- I saw it last year sometime (after February) on flickr, but I'll be darned if I can find it again. Otherwise I would have been happy to link to that clever individual.

Yesterday the Procrastination Gods' attention must have been momentarily drawn elsewhere, because the weather, the schedule, and all the children cooperated so we could get these done. They were actually pretty easy to make. I had the kids sign their names on the back, which is what they would have done for the Shrek/Snoopy/Scooby Doo valentines they've used in past years. One design flaw, however -- there was nowhere to write "Happy Valentine's Day!" except for the space right behind the lollipop. So you can't see it until you take the lollipop off. And we ran out of the lollipops with the clear wrapper and had to improvise with whatever was left at the drugstore. Still, I think that's fairly minor for how cute they turned out.

This afternoon (it's currently 5:29 pm) I have to make a Weight Watchers-approved dinner (oh yes, it's official; I'm back on the program), finish one quillow and start another in preparation for our road trip on Wednesday, clean the entire house (in which there is not one room where you can walk in any direction for more than a foot without stepping on something), and wash several loads of dirty clothes. Putting that amount of stuff off is no easy task, let me tell you. It's enough to make you post for the first time in a month!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Award-winning design

2008-01-19T16:42:00.000-05:00

Today was the Pinewood Derby for Nate's Cub Scout pack. Fortunately for us, the whole affair was pretty straightforward. After our experience last year, we were all determined that this year would be better. Of course then we had to reconcile that determination with what we were actually capable of doing.

So the design of choice this year for us was a schoolbus, due mostly to its ease of execution. Tim paid more attention this year to the Pinewood Derby offerings at our local craft store, and we used weights and everything. Unfortunately they didn't seem to help us much, since the schoolbus didn't win any races. (We've since learned that using graphite on the wheels helps a lot -- so we'll have to try that next year.)

But something must have improved, because this year Nate won 1st Place in his den for Design. So that's good.

There were lots of interesting entries again this year. The overall design winners were a futuristic purple and yellow car, a penguin in a mine car, and a vehicle shaped like a Flying V guitar (unfortunately we don't have any pictures of that last one). You can see the whole set here.

And that's another Pinewood Derby under our belt!

Not to be missed

2008-01-14T11:24:00.000-05:00

Since I don't have time right now to address the list of things that have been going on with us for the last few weeks, I thought I'd share this wonderful film with you to tide you over.

Enjoy!

People in Order

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2007-12-22T17:38:00.001-05:00

Christmas 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Two minutes after this picture was taken someone had already taken off their shoes and left them on the couch.

So far I've cleaned three bathrooms and a living room today. Two more rooms to go and then I've got LOTS of cookie dough to make.

Oh, and wrapping. I've got a lot of that to do too. However, almost all my Christmas presents are done. I just might make it in time this year without wrapping crazily on Christmas Eve!

Mildly disturbing

2007-12-19T21:55:00.001-05:00

So what does it mean, if I can identify a celebrity that I have never seen in a movie (I don't think) and who I don't care two whits about one way or the other, only by her feet and shoes? (And very manly feet and shoes they are, too. That's how I figured it out.)

That is TOO WEIRD.

(But I got it right! Geez, talk about your dubious accomplishments...)

A very large visitor

2007-12-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

So the other day Tim and I decided that our lot was entirely too "wooded" (as a realtor would say), and that we were tired of living with the daily fear of getting smashed into our bed by a 90-foot pine tree with shallow roots and a double top, growing 5 feet outside our bedroom window.

Tim went outside to take a good look around. Hattie, who had dressed herself (in 40 degree weather) in biker shorts, a camo t-shirt, and hot pink boots with no socks, decided to come along.

What's that? Hattie, you want to take a picture, too? Well, okay.

Yep. It's time for some of these home- and life-threatening trees to come down. So we make a few phone calls and talk to a couple of people.

Ding Dong! There's someone at the front door! Who could it be? Why, it's Mr. Bucket Truck! Hello, Mr. Bucket Truck! Careful of the flowers, there!

Oh look! I can see Mr. Bucket Truck through the living room window, too! The what? The spiderwebs? Oh, that's because we live in a haunted mansion.

Wait, let me take a look out of the bedroom window just to make sure. Yep, that's a bucket truck, all right.

Um, sure. Just make yourself comfortable. That's as good a place as any, I guess. Mind you don't slip!

Check back soon for some fun 'after' photos!

Martha Stewart hack

2007-12-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it. 14 teacher gifts done -- sweater ornaments finished, notes written, and packaged last night. And I have Martha Stewart to thank for making it possible.

I'm kind of torn on Martha Stewart. She's frequently held up, superficially anyway, as a role model for all good housewives to follow. Accordingly, since most of us don't have full staffs to do all the prep work, it's a standard that's pretty much unattainable, and that could lead to feelings of insufficiency. (But not on my part. I already know I'm awesome.) However, for a corporate juggernaut, she does do lots of cute things.

Case in point: these cookie sleeves. What are these for? Who is giving out one cookie? If I'm giving cookies as a gift, I'm not going to give out only one. And if I am giving someone one cookie (like a neighbor child), I'm sure as heck not going to package it in gaily-decorated waxed paper with a To/From sticker on it. So from a cookie standpoint, for me, this is basically not a useful item. That's for me. I'm sure it would be invaluable to someone else. Please don't send me vicious emails because I'm hatin' on Martha.

However, it turned out to be perfect for these little sweaters, which I wanted to package kind of on a card, but the envelope would have to fit the sweater in also. So I bought a couple of packs of these, wrote a nice note on the cards, slotted the tops and draped the hanger from the sweater over it, taped the hanger down on the back, and with a little doublestick tape, packaged these up with a To/From sticker on the front. Small, manageable, cute, easy, and perfect.

And I even thought to trace both the size of the card inside and the wrapper shape on a separate piece of paper so I can recreate it out of regular wrapping paper. Now that's a good thing.

Teacher gifts

2007-12-14T13:28:00.001-05:00

teacher gifts
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Holy moly. And again with the whining about whether or not this hectic pace will ever stop. I keep thinking, "after this next thing, THEN I'll have time to" insert next project here. And yet? That's right. Then there still isn't any time.

It's now 1:15 pm and Hattie and I are almost ready to have lunch, which happens to be "mushroom guys" I found in the freezer -- mushroom appetizers in phyllo that we got from Trader Joe's. We desperately needed to go to the grocery store today because we have no milk, no bread, no lunch items, no soap, you get the picture. But after we went to the Y, and then the organizer lady came (could there be an end in sight to the &*^% that has taken up permanent residence on our kitchen counter????), and then the tree service lady came, it is now 1:15 and the mushroom guys still have 15 minutes left in the oven. And I have to get in the car pool line shortly after 2, so I can pick up the kids and get Charlotte to her therapy appointment by 3:00. Oh yeah, and I haven't taken a shower yet. That is GREAT.

So when, I ask, am I supposed to be going to the store? Maybe on our way back from therapy at 5 pm this afternoon. I'm sure there won't be any people there at 5 on a Friday afternoon...

Okay. Changing the subject now. These are the mini sweaters, some of which you may already have seen, which I am giving to the teachers for teacher gifts on Monday. I've been working on these on and off all year, and with the exception of that chocolate/vanilla one on the bottom right, I've got them all done. I'm still debating whether I should embroider the teachers' initials on the front of each one, but that's looking increasingly doubtful.

Package these bad boys up and that's one thing I can cross off my list. Next up? 4 batches of cookies.

And there are still two weekends before Christmas! I'm ahead this year!

Sliding down the razor blade of life

2007-12-05T11:51:00.000-05:00

I thought things were crazy in that last post. But then it got even more crazy.

Despite everything that's going on and everywhere that everyone has to be, lots of yarn has been delivered (yay!) and there's been lots of frenzied knitting going on around here. The first thing I need to finish is these hats, which are not even Christmas gifts. Nate's was easy, Hattie's was slightly harder, and Charlotte's seems to be taking a REALLY LONG TIME even though I've been knitting in every car pool line, at long red lights, and at Bell Choir practice (see below).

Add that to an absolutely insane Bell Choir schedule (oh yes, that would be FIVE performances this WEEK, not including practices), and you have a LOT of rushing around. I mean, I enjoy handbells and all, but really.

I guilted Tim into coming home early from work Monday so we could go get our tree. We got it up and the lights on, and there it sits, resplendent in its glory, bare of ornaments and surrounded by Christmas boxes and all their disgorged contents. Not exactly the Christmas tableau I was going for.

Then this morning at 6:45 Tim and 3 of his co-workers left for a conference on Georgia's coast. Until Friday night. Which gives me a couple of days to get our household back on some kind of even keel. Interesting. If I get a handle on this, I'll post pictures. And with luck it won't take me three weeks.

Crazy Thursday

2007-11-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

The big reason we were looking forward to yesterday was because it was Nate's birthday. Knowing that, I thought I'd make brownies for him to take in for his class. As it turned out, however, it was also the day of both Hattie's and Charlotte's Thanksgiving Feasts (in separate schools, of course), in addition to an "Autumn Dessert" for the kindergartners' parents. So things got a little zany around here yesterday.

It started out at 9 am, when I packed the car with the aforementioned brownies, cornbread muffins, corn on the cob, and a gingerbread cake. I zipped Hattie to school and then went straight to Charlotte's school in order to be there in time for their Thanksgiving Feast at 10:15.

A few minutes before 11, I took off again to go back to Hattie's school for their Thanksgiving Feast. Here she is, wearing the shirt she made out of one of the t-shirts I ended up dying with tea bags. I think it goes very nicely with her tie-dyed tights that she picked out herself that morning.

Then it was back to Charlotte's school for the "Autumn Dessert," an event designed to accommodate parents who wanted to be included in the Thanksgiving Feast. Since there was limited room available in the lunchroom, the powers that be decided to have individual celebrations in the classrooms that all the parents could attend. And oh, by the way, there will be singing. Fortunately Tim managed to work it into his schedule, because I was about 10 minutes late getting there from Hattie's school and so missed 75% of the program.

I was, however, able to make it in time for "Albuquerque Turkey," a song Charlotte has been singing all week about a turkey who some farm children hide from their farmer dad who says, "Chop, Chop, Chop!" and so they end up eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Thanksgiving Day. I'm not sure where Albuquerque fits into this whole horror scenario, but everyone enjoyed hearing/singing the song, complete with axe murderer-type hand motions.

After these festivities were over I could focus on Nate's birthday. Lucky for me, he wanted an ice cream cake (which I bought) and sausage gravy and biscuits for dinner, so it was a very easy meal to plan and make.

He was so excited about his presents that he couldn't wait to open them with cake, like we usually do, so he opened them while I finished making dinner. Everything was a hit, and I was glad to see that his Weasley sweater not only fit, but he liked it. In another stroke of luck, the weather cooperated by dropping the temperature about 20 degrees, so it was even cold enough here to wear it.

And since he'd already opened his presents, he was able to put together and play with his new Playmobil castle before he had to get ready for bed. So that all worked out.

The verdict? A successful day, overall, if a little hectic. I will be glad, however, when all three kids are in the same school next year.

Happy Birthday, Nate!

Fifties Day

2007-11-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

The four-year-olds are having Fifties Day at Hattie's school today. So we were supposed to dress up our children appropriately. It was interesting trying to explain to Hattie what the 1950's were. The best I could do was tell her that it was like "olden times," except not really that olden. Not as long ago as when there were princesses or anything like that. More like when Grandma and Grandpa were in school. And really, it was 50 years ago! That would have been like having Twenties Day when I was her age.

In true Hattie fashion, she balked a little when I picked out all her clothes. But in the end she wore everything, even if she did keep untucking her shirt.

And this is what we ended up with:

I'll be interested to see how the day goes.

Too much fun

2007-11-02T11:03:00.001-05:00

Here are our three trick-or-treaters, ready to go out into the neighborhood. Don't they look excited?

Actually I think it was the picture-taking that they were done with, not the candy-getting. As you can see, it's still light out, so they hadn't really left yet.

They came back about an hour after this picture was taken, all kinds of hopped up. Tim dropped the girls off to help me hand out candy, while he and Nate went out for a little more craziness. And there was much sobbing among the left-behind contingent.

But it came out all right in the end. The night's only casualty was a broken handle on a pumpkin bucket that was stretched beyond its limit. Not a bad problem to have on Halloween night.

Happy Fall Weekend!

Not making this up

2007-10-19T16:51:00.001-05:00

by the gorillas
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

In the last 24 hours, this adorable child has

--stood on the roof of her father's car so she could successfully pull the cord that disconnects the garage door, and

--taken the scissors to the Halloween costume that her sister was planning to wear this year.

And both projects took her approximately 5 minutes each, so she is very speedy, as well as effective. Just thought I'd write them down so we wouldn't forget about them.

Decorating

2007-10-19T16:42:00.001-05:00

leaf garland
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Recently I saw garlands that other people had made, and knew that I had finally found a project worthy of the sweater I thrifted and then felted last year. In fact, I even went a little crazy and bought some felted sweater scraps from etsy so I could have more colors. Unfortunately the leaf templates that everyone else used were no longer available, but between Google and my back yard, I managed to make do. There are things I would do differently next time, but overall I like it.

Two things I learned from this project: 1) cutting small leaves out of old sweaters is hard, and 2) I LOVE working with wool felt. So now I am permanently on a search for thrifted wool sweaters.

Have a great weekend!

Catching up

2007-10-14T11:11:00.001-05:00

First, some old business. About a month ago we went to Charlottesville, Virginia, for the UVA/Georgia Tech game. This trip is becoming a tradition, missed only when Nate was born about a week before the game in 1999. It's nice because now the kids are old enough to get something out of it when we visit historic monuments, such as this one:

the requisite tourist shot of Monticello, complete with tourists. Can a Williamsburg trip be far behind? (Spoken like a true history geek.) You can see all the rest of the pictures here.

Here's a picture of the kids, all ready to go into the game. In case anyone is wondering how we decided whose allegiance went where, it was dictated solely by which shirt fit which child. We had Georgia Tech shirts in Nate's and Charlotte's sizes, and a Virginia shirt in Hattie's size.

One of the funniest things that happened that day was when we were on the way to the game, and I stopped into a building to use the facilities. While I was gone an elderly gentleman asked Tim how a GT family (Tim, Nate, and Charlotte) ended up with one little Virginia fan! But then he understood once I came walking up in my UVA shirt.

It was while we were on our trip that Tim did a little birthday shopping for me in Monticello's gift shop. Which is how I ended up with this:

a presidential dishtowel listing every president up to the current day. It's actually kind of cool, although it seems a little disrespectful to be wiping dishes with the presidents. Well, with some of them.

So that brings us to this weekend. Tim and Nate were off camping with the cub scouts, and even the (male) dog went to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. So it was a girly weekend. We managed to keep ourselves busy, though.

First up, a trip to the zoo, which was decorated for Halloween. Here's Hattie posing by a cut-out of me a scary tomato.

And with a friend, petting the sheep at the petting zoo area.

On Saturday our first stop was at the Atlanta area Scandinavian Festival,

where we stopped at the Sons of Norway tent. The gent there was very nattily dressed in traditional Norwegian clothing, and he looked so much like my dad that Hattie said, "That man looks just like Grandpa!"

Fortunately I had thought far enough ahead to bring Hattie's soccer uniform with us, because we went straight from the festival to her soccer game.

Then it was home for a quick change so we could go to Charlotte's class Halloween party.

Charlotte decided weeks ago that she was going to be a cat, but Hattie's plan had switched from being Little Bo Peep (no idea how I would have done that) to a cheerleader. As we were getting dressed to go, she changed her mind again and decided to go as ~~Orlando Bloom~~ Robin Hood, in Nate's costume from last year. Fortunately that was easy to handle and we were off again.

After the party we trudged back home for a supper of tea and egg salad, and then we all went to bed. They fell right asleep and I un-knitted (tinked!) seven rows of the intarsia I had tried to knit in the round, which, oh, by the way, DOESN'T WORK. Well, it kind of worked in that I got the yarn to go where I needed it, but since the whole trick is to keep your knitted picture from puckering by keeping the yarn that's running behind the right length so your tension will be even, that's the part that doesn't work. So I un-knitted it all (not trusting myself to frog it without dropping stitches) and I am going to have to go the duplicate stitch route.

Next up? Haircuts and cleaning!

What? A month already??

2007-10-11T07:48:00.001-05:00

Wow. Time just flies when you are running around like screaming, insane, crazy people. As usual, the combination of my extreme procrastination coupled with OCD perfectionism has led to a lack of posting, since I won't be able to do it "properly." Hence, no posting lately. Sorry about that.

Anyhoo, the weather looks like it's cooperating today (jackets at the bus stop, woo-hoo!), and it's sunny enough for photos that I'll take as soon as I get home from work today, so there is more exciting content to come. Lots of things have happened since my last post -- we went on a trip, I had a birthday, and we let the cleaning lady go, so we've been living in squalor. I probably won't show you that part, tho. But you might get lucky.

However, the things that are aggravating me today are: 1) lots of guilt from not posting for the last month, and 2) HOW DO YOU DO INTARSIA WHEN YOU ARE KNITTING IN THE ROUND???

When I follow my chart all the contrast yarn ends up at the wrong side when I come around again! Do any of you knitters out there know the secret? I have to leave in 5 minutes to go sit in the carpool line (perfect knitting opportunity), so there's no LYS open yet to call. So far Google has only revealed secrets for socks, which I am not currently knitting.

And to round out this wacked-out post, a nice fall picture:

See you in just a little bit, I promise.

One week

2007-09-13T12:30:00.001-05:00

One week from today -- this is where we'll be!

Good ol' UVA!

Emotional Extremes

2007-09-12T14:53:00.000-05:00

I found out two things today, as I worked my way through my list of errand-type phone calls.

As I was talking to the company who we order all Hattie's diabetic supplies from, the representative I was talking to casually mentioned that our health insurance (renowned, at least by us, for refusing to pay for lots of things most other insurances cover) has been fully covering a continuous glucose monitor.

This monitor, which is compatible with Hattie's insulin pump, is basically a patch she would wear on her arm, for example, that would send periodic readings to her pump, so if we want to see what her blood sugar level is, we just look at her pump, instead of having to prick her finger several times a day. It also has an alarm that goes off if her blood sugar starts getting too low or too high. That's just huge! I was so excited that I called the endocrinologist immediately.

When we got Hattie's insulin pump about 18 months ago, the FDA had just approved the use of a continuous glucose monitor for adults, and since then they've allowed it for older children. So we've been anxiously waiting for the time when we could use it as well. The doctors didn't want to prescribe it for younger kids until the insurance companies started covering it, which it now looks like they have! In even better news, we've already fulfilled our deductible for this year, so if we can manage to get it before the end of the year, we'll only have to pay 10%! Whoo-hoo!! That will be awesome.

Nothing like a little exciting insurance talk, huh? Anyone still reading? Hello? Well, there's more.

So now for even more exciting insurance news. Our car insurance rates have been astronomical since October of 2005, when I had the accident that totalled our van. Not totally unexpected, since they paid for us to get a new van, but something we've been having to deal with ever since. Since it's been almost two years since it happened, and my driving record has been stellar ever since (knocks on wood), I started calling around to see if we could get a better rate.

The person I was talking to pulled up our claim history so she could give us a rate, and she happened to mention that yes, our insurance had paid $20,000 to replace our car (which we obviously knew). Then she proceeded to tell me that they paid the guy who hit me $14,000 to repair his macked-out excuse-for-an-insufficient-body-part pick-up complete with cow bars on the front for extra smashing, IN ADDITION TO $14,000 for medical injury!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, this is a guy who, when he slammed into me, as I was turning left into an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, while he was going 50+ mph in a SCHOOL ZONE, he hit me so hard that the firemen who answered the call said they had never seen a front airbag go off from an impact that far back, as he jumped out of his car ON THE PHONE, did not ask if I was all right, or even if I had a child in the car. Instead he just started cussing me out as I stood there crying in the middle of the street.

After that he ignored me as he glad-handed the cops who came to the scene, and they all literally patted each other on the back and started talking about hunting. No joke. What a surprise that I got the ticket. And when I contested the whole thing in court they told me that the only thing I could discuss was whether or not I was turning left, which obviously I WAS, and then that was it.

So now I find out that not only did it cost $14,000 to fix his stupid truck, but he put in for an additional $14,000 in medical injury?? No wonder our rates are through the roof! There's a special place in Hell for people like that.

In case you think I'm exaggerating, here's what he looked like after the accident:

Nice, huh? Yeah, he looks pretty injured. So, the lesson remains, if you see this man flying around metro Atlanta, whatever you do, DON'T TURN LEFT IN FRONT OF HIM!

Now that I've left you with that cheery post, I'm going to go downstairs so I can finish fuming. I'll just have to keep the continuous glucose monitor in mind, and especially the fact that our accident could have been so much worse that we're lucky it wasn't.

Beach picture, revisited

2007-09-10T14:02:00.001-05:00

at the beach
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Wow! My friend just gave me this picture she took of Tim and me when we were at the beach this past July. I think this picture looks better than some professional ones we've had taken of us.

And those waves in the background are real, not a a backdrop.

4 today

2007-08-30T19:17:00.000-05:00

Today Hattie turned 4 years old. So I sent her off to preschool with 18 strawberry cupcakes to help celebrate. Hard to believe that she's 4 already. Seems like it wasn't that long ago that we were bringing her home from the hospital.

It was a pretty full day. After celebrating with her class, we went to play at the neighbors' after school, and we had Chick Fil-A for dinner (her choice). After dinner we opened presents, including the one I'd made for Nate and Charlotte to give her. A Birdy Buddy Bag, complete with the buddy, a birdy finger puppet.

She liked it and all her other presents, but the big hit was what Tim and I gave her: the Enchanted Fairy Village, a riot of brightly colored plastic with a zillion tiny pieces sure to be lost, broken, swallowed, or stepped on in the middle of the night. It came with two fairies, for extra squabbling when shared between 3 kids.

She was so excited about the fairy village that she didn't even want any cake, opting for a couple of strawberries instead. Which was actually much better for her than all that sugar would have been.

We're so lucky she's here and she's ours. That's really what we were celebrating today.

Card-carrying suburbanites

2007-08-25T17:08:00.000-05:00

Two things of note happened in the last couple of days.

The first, and by far the most noteworthy, is that our new little niece is here! Mom and baby are doing great, and are in fact already home from the hospital. Both mom and dad are justifiably as proud as they can be. I'd love to post a picture of little miss, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't been cleared for the internet. I can tell you, however, that she is little and pink and perfect! And making all the right cute-as-a-button baby noises.

In other news, Hattie and Nate started soccer practice today.

This afternoon we packed up all our kids (and Grandma!) into our minivan and headed out to the soccer field. So it's official -- I'm a soccer mom.

Looking for lunchboxes

2007-08-21T09:18:00.000-05:00

My sister and her husband are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their first child. And so are all the rest of us. Accordingly, my mother, who could stand it no longer, is on her way down to stay with us for a few days until the baby is born.

Mom will be here in an hour or two, so my one project for this morning is to straighten up the house a little. So it immediately became vital for me to hit the internet in search of a new lunchbox for Charlotte.

I looked at Target yesterday, and there is a lot of junk out there. Of course that may be because we are on our second week of school here, and anyone with any smarts bought their lunchboxes a month ago, leaving only the ones no one wants behind. As a result, I didn't buy anything there for her.

So I fell back on my go-to source, the internet. While surfing around I happened across this:

a beautifully tasteful lunchbox for a little girl. And also, incidentally, the exact same style as the one my always impeccably turned-out sister selected for herself in the early 70's at the age of 4.

Just seeing it took me immediately back to sandwiches in baggies (remember? before Zip-Locs?? Please hand me my cane and back away from my rocking chair.) and loud lunchrooms.

But not as much as this one did:

Oh, yes. Doesn't every 2nd grade girl want an Addams Family lunchbox? I must have carried this one for years. All my friends had Holly Hobbie, or Peanuts, or even David Cassidy, but not me. I'll never forget the time I was walking to 2nd grade with the 1st grade boy from next door, and we noticed another little boy carrying this same lunchbox. "Look," my friend said, "that boy has a girl's lunchbox!" Umm, right.

How many lunches did I stare at that picture? So many, since I took my lunch almost every day through 6th grade.

I can literally taste the red Kool-Aid when I see this thermos. Too bad we don't still have it -- a lunchbox just like this in great condition just sold for $550 on eBay.

Maybe I should put more thought into the one I get for Charlotte.

What's on my needles

2007-08-20T15:22:00.001-05:00

scarf
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Looks like I'm going to have to get all organize-y on my own, seeing as I didn't win that new filing system. My essay did get an honorable mention, however, so I'm glad of that.

In a flurry of cleaning out this weekend, I happened across this UnFinished Object, which I'd put down sometime this past spring. I thought, however, that I'd better finish it up, since one day these 100 degree days are going to pass and I'm going to need something to wear with my red coat.

The last time this project appeared on this blog was here. So you can see I've come a long way since then. It's a really nice Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran wool, so it knits beautifully. I'm using the mistake rib, which is easy, even if it has started to get a little boring. I used the same blue and green as the one I saw at Why Knot Knit, except I changed the size of the stripes and threw that red in there using the random stripe generator (which is SO COOL). LOVE the random stripe generator!

Anyhoo, thought maybe you people would rather check out something a little lighter than my last post.

And a great big welcome to anyone heading over this way from kerflop!

Trying to win, take 2

2007-08-17T19:39:00.000-05:00

Well, in case you hadn't figured it out, I didn't win a new JOYS filing system in that last contest, despite the terrifying photos of what I call my files.

However, Jessica over at Kerflop is giving away another one to the lucky person who best answers the question: What brings you Joy?

So here's my entry -- What Brings Me Joy

It would be really easy for me to write down a list of things that bring me joy, for example, a big piece of cake, a great book, puppies, and going out for a really nice dinner with my husband (not necessarily in that order). And it would be true that all those things bring me joy.

However, I think true joy really comes from within.

How many of us know people who have no business being happy, considering the horrible things that have happened to them, and yet they are? Conversely, there are people who seemingly have everything, including the big intangible things like good kids and a good marriage, but they get no joy from any of it. How can that be?

The answer, I think, is largely based in attitude. I used to have a friend whose father really enjoyed life. He would marvel at a particularly interesting flower, or savor a satisfying meal. And he was never too self-conscious to tell someone about it. Many of the things he enjoyed, his kids, his garden, his house, were a product of his hard work. He took great pride in those things. He would never boast about them, but you could tell just by looking at him that he loved them. However, there were lots of other things that he loved just because he appreciated them. He loved to meet new people, go new places, and try new things. He read a lot, and loved to discuss theories, methods, and events. But he hadn't had a particularly charmed life, he just knew how to live it in the way that brought him the most joy.

I know another person who literally grew up on Park Avenue in New York. He was raised by his sisters and the domestic staff. He had a trust fund at his disposal from the age of 21, and he attended only the best schools. He liked to golf, which he did frequently, and one time he even went over to Scotland so he could play at St. Andrews. Apparently he was popular with models, because he dated lots of them. I knew him fairly well, but I never saw him really enjoy anything. He was a sharp guy, and he always had a witty comment ready, but he never seemed comfortable with himself.

So why did one person have so much joy, and the other so little?

I think the difference lies in their respective reactions to the million things we all experience every day. Great things, good things, bad things, and horrible things happen to all of us. But we are affected differently because of how we allow ourselves to be affected. Do we appreciate good things, or do we take them for granted? Do we bounce back from things that upset us, or do we let them drag us down with them? If I'm too busy letting things upset me, there's no way I can enjoy even the things that should be obvious, like my kids, or a free afternoon.

Given a choice, I'd much rather emulate my friend's father. It was because he was so at peace with himself that he was able to appreciate so many of the things he saw, heard, or felt. If I achieve even half of that peace in my lifetime, that would truly bring me joy.

Filing System REVEALED

2007-08-14T16:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I just entered a giveaway that I heard about via Kerflop. Heather at ohmystinkinheck is giving away a free home filing system.

Theoretically, I'm organized. Meaning that I can be. But I'm usually not. As you can see from the following (WARNING -- graphic photos!):

Here you see my carefully organized craft supplies. Note the magazine holders still in their original packaging for maximum protection.

I actually bought two office-sized industrial filing cabinets from my sister last year, which I do use, but not as much as I should. They're also excellent for use as storage for infrequently used items, such as the paint I used to make Christmas gifts with last year.

And this is my piece de resistance (how do you do accents on this thing??). The box is full of ironing waiting to be done, including the girls' Easter dresses. The laundry basket below it is my bete noire, as long as we're being all French about it (we'll just imagine that there's a circonflex over bete, as I am incapable of figuring out how to do that). Truly if anyone were to schedule an archaeological dig in there, they might find old bills from fall of 2005. And maybe more important stuff, but I'm pretending like nothing like that's in there.

And there you have it. Come as you are, reveal personal intimate secrets to the internets!

First Day

2007-08-13T08:41:00.000-05:00

Today is Charlotte's first day of kindergarten.

She was SO excited -- she had her new purple backpack that she picked out all by herself, and she got to ride on the bus with Nate, who thoughtfully agreed to sit with her and show her how to get to her classroom.

Charlotte's been going to preschool at this same school since 2005, so even though the first day of kindergarten is a very big deal, it wasn't as much of an adjustment as it might have been. And since we tend to be more pragmatic than emotional around here, I was completely caught off-guard by the catch in my throat as she boarded that big old bus all by herself, with a giant, toothless grin and her blonde ponytail swinging.

Sigh. Now I have two big kids. *sniff*

Birthdays and cakes

2007-08-08T08:25:00.000-05:00

Late last week we celebrated Tim's 40th birthday. He didn't want any hoop-la, so I made his favorite dinner (Chicken Caprese -- baked, breaded chicken breasts with a sour cream and tomato sauce) and we enjoyed it at home with just us and the ice cream cake he'd requested from Publix. Mint chocolate chip ice cream with marble cake and whipped topping. YUM! (Whoo -- getting a little sidetracked by the cake...)

Anyway, when I met Tim in 1995 he looked like this:

(Picture taken in Memphis, where we were visiting his brother.)

Now, however, Tim looks like this:

A little older and a little wiser. But still good-looking! I wish I could wear like that.

August must be a good month for birthdays. Tim's was the first one and then next week we have his other brother's birthday and my dad's. Hattie will be 4 at the very end of the month, but in between there we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little niece, my sister's first child.

We had a great time at her baby shower a week or so ago.

We ate lots of chicken salad and other good things,

including petit fours! They were so cute I could barely stand to eat them. But I managed. Four times. (ahem)

Happy Birthday to all our Leos! (And to Hattie, who's a Virgo, but you'll hear more about her birthday later.)

Withdrawal

2007-08-01T17:02:00.000-05:00

There's been a dearth of posting around here lately largely due to the Harry Potterthon that's been going on for the last couple of weeks. That, and my persistent fear that I was going to run across a spoiler for Book 7 inadvertently. (Don't worry, there are none here.)

At one point late last week my mother was here visiting. While she was here she started the last book. I was still working my way through the other HP books (see 6 Weird Things About Me, #1), and Tim and Nate were reading yet another book in the series upstairs in his bedroom. Three different HP books going in the same house, at the same time! True geekery. Or love of a good story, either one.

But now I am surfacing, 4100 pages later, from my total immersion in all things Potter. And oh, the withdrawal! In my desperation I've already found a pronunciation guide (come to find out, Accio is pronounced "AH-see-oh", not "AX-ee-oh" -- who knew??), and an HP lexicon for maximum detail-clarifying.

Now that I think about it, maybe it's a good thing that I'm being forced back into the real world. I have people in my house with no clean underpants, and they're starting to get sick of fish sticks and Hamburger Helper for dinner. Hello, world! I'm back!

Treasure Island

2007-07-25T10:21:00.000-05:00

We spent all of last week at Tybee Island, GA, with our neighbors across the street who also have three kids. It was a very, very fun trip. With the exception of a long weekend last summer, Tim and I hadn't really been to the beach since we were married almost 11 years ago. On top of that, we hadn't ever taken a vacation with another family before, so when we set out a week ago Saturday it was really a leap of faith.

Fortunately everyone got along great. The kids played beautifully together and having four adults there full-time made it easier on everyone. We all felt like we had really been on vacation, which, as most parents know, is a rarity when you travel with small children and no nannies or babysitters.

In the week we were there we had gorgeous weather, so we did all the typical beachy stuff:

we ran races;
we looked for shells;
we dug holes and made sandcastles;
we visited Savannah;
we wrote our names in the sand;
we watched a quick rain shower from under our tent, and then were rewarded with a spectacular, full, double rainbow;
we played in the surf;
we went out to dinner so we could eat our weight in seafood (oh wait, that was just me);
and we played with sparklers on the beach.

We were all sad when it was time to go home. But our beach vacation had done its job: we were sandy, happy, relaxed, and refocused on what we treasure most.

Antidote

2007-07-23T18:50:00.000-05:00

Well, I've found something that will keep me off the computer unless I have to do something absolutely critical (e.g., checking bank balances, finding directions):

being completely paranoid that I'm going to see some kind of Harry Potter spoiler.

You'd be surprised how effective that is. I'm even scared to read the paper. Talk about freeing up a bunch of extra time!

In theory, anyway. Somehow I still manage to be not only busy but behind the eightball as well. However, as soon as I can I'm going to post a bunch of great photos from our week at the beach last week. So you have that to look forward to.

New Bike

2007-07-13T10:57:00.001-05:00

New Bike
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

While Charlotte was at speech therapy yesterday morning we went out and got a new bike for Nate. The one he had been riding was ridiculously small for him, so he was thrilled to pick out a new one.

He was so excited that he rode it on the sidewalk in front of the elementary school while we waited for Charlotte to be done. That's why he's not wearing his helmet in this shot. But he wore it all day yesterday while he rode all over the neighborhood.

Happy Friday the 13th everyone!

As promised

2007-07-10T07:50:00.000-05:00

Like I said yesterday, I learned a very important thing while we were spending time with my parents last week.

That was how to make egg coffee. Which might seem like an odd skill to have in this day of super-incredible-fancy-dancy-do-everything-but-make-dinner coffee makers, but it will come in extremely handy when we're camping. And it also appeals to my sense of history and self-sufficiency, since my dad learned it from his Aunt Hattie (who our daughter is named after), an incredibly skilled and talented woman.

1. Step 1, 2. Step 2, 3. Step 3, 4. Final Product

The egg apparently traps the grounds so the coffee can brew. Aunt Hattie used to make coffee like this on her mother's wood stove in a house with no electricity, so it was only a short jump to making it the same way on a campfire.

Follow the links above for a detailed tutorial on how I did it. While it's not rocket science, my first attempt didn't go perfectly. Hopefully others will learn from my mistake.

Anyway, if you find yourself sitting at a campsite dying for a cup of coffee, you might want to try it. It's fun and the coffee's great.

And it beats the heck out of the brown water you get from coffee in a tea bag.

Trip to Chattanooga

2007-07-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

Last week we got the opportunity to spend several days in Chattanooga at my parents' house, just hanging out. Among our many activities were a trip to the Tennessee Aquarium, a ride on the Coolidge Park Carousel, and a ride on the WWII amphibious DUKW boats.

Here are some of the better pictures, which you can also click through to see on flickr at your leisure.

I was also able to do some knitting, but check back after tomorrow morning and I'll have pictures of one of the most important things I learned this past week.

Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Things of note

2007-06-29T20:45:00.001-05:00

felt cake 1
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Obviously there's been a dearth of posting around here. This is for a variety of reasons, but so far this week the interfering factors have mainly been (in chronological order): therapy, camping, work, swim team, more therapy, more swim team, meetings, and preparation for hosting about 40 people at our home for dinner tomorrow night.

It's taken every inch of my logistical capabilities to keep up with all the different people scheduled to do things for me this week like steam carpets, babysit, and clean house while I ferried various children (and myself) to our respective activities, usually several per day, and often all at the same time.

Speaking of activities, Nate not only got a blue ribbon Wednesday night swimming the 100 IM, but the very next day he received the Sportsmanship award at his swim team banquet. The Sportsmanship award was awarded to only one child on the whole team, and Nate got it for swimming up with the 9-10s (as a 7-year-old) for two whole meets (out of five) without complaining once, and with a cast on his arm! So we are very proud of him for that.

And it didn't take nearly as much effort as everything else has this week, but I just added this photo to a new group on flickr -- the Play Food! group. Lots of unbelievably cute knitted and felt food there. You should check it out! One day I'll get back to doing that kind of thing.

So-- we've got the big party tomorrow, then crash on Sunday. Monday we've got therapy from 9:30 to noon, a routine test for Charlotte at the hospital, and a follow-up doctor visit after that. Tuesday is an hour and a half of swim lessons, followed by speech therapy, and packing for 5 people for several days. Then (after giving the kennel a sob story about how there's no way we can get the dog in to the vet for his annual shots before we leave) we're dropping the dog off at the kennel (without shots) and heading out of town for the rest of the week to spend the 4th with family in Chattanooga. Woo-hoo! I'll rest then.

Legacies

2007-06-20T06:12:00.000-05:00

We'd all known this day would come, but we were pretending it wouldn't.

A week ago Saturday my grandmother passed away. She was 101 and had been ailing for the past couple of years. The funeral was last weekend, so the kids and I picked up my parents in Chattanooga and we drove on up to the St. Louis area where she'd lived all her life.

She lived in this house for sixty years or so, selling it only when it was time for her to move somewhere where there would be more people around to help her, if necessary. She and my grandfather built it in the early '30's, and my mother grew up in it.

Every Sunday and every holiday my mother and her family, along with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins, used to convene at her grandparents' house, which was next door to the church. That house was built in 1905, and, as the story goes, had the only electricity in town at the time, which was such a novelty that people used to pull their wagons and buggies up across the street to watch the lights turn on at night.

When I knew this house, it belonged to my aunt and uncle. Whenever we were in town we spent many happy hours there.

While last weekend was a sad occasion, it was nice to see people who I hadn't seen in years, or maybe decades. And really it was much more a celebration of a life well-lived than a morose gathering. Grandma had been saying for at least the last 20 years that she didn't want anyone crying at her funeral because she had had a good time in her stay here and she was excited to get on to see what was next. After her husband, my grandpa, died in 1977, she continued with all her interests, her groups, and her activities. She bought a computer years before I did, and she belonged to groups with other people who were decades younger than she was.

Last year we drove up to Illinois to say goodbye to my father's mother. The traits I like to think she passed along to me were a strong work ethic and a fierce independence. And while my mother's mom certainly worked hard, she loved to have a good time. She had lots of friends and lots of interests, which meant she was usually doing something she enjoyed. She was always excited about something and she never let conventions about what "old people do" stand in her way. That love of life was a true gift, and she shared it whenever she could. Many, many times she shared it with me.

My mother frequently gets excited about new things or interests, and I find myself doing it too. And there are other people in my house who like to try new things and who don't feel bound by convention.

A strong work ethic, fierce independence, and an endless love of life. I'd say my grandmas set me up pretty well.

Mini sweater progress

2007-05-31T11:04:00.001-05:00

mini sweaters
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

Because I know everyone was just dying to know how I was coming on my goal of making lots and lots of miniature sweaters for all my gift-giving needs this Christmas, here's an update. I have about eight and a half done.

Except for the two smaller ones, these were all done with Peaches & Creme cotton worsted yarn. I bought the Mason-Dixon special package directly from Elmore Pisgah, the manufacturer. They weren't offering the same assortment just now when I looked, but it included about a dozen different colors which have been very fun to play with. My order looked like this right out of the box.

*******
And just for fun, here's a hilarious link which I re-happened upon last night. James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food is a collection of recipes from vintage cookbooklets, with commentary written from today's perspective. Definitely worth a look.

Etsy Love

2007-05-29T16:26:00.001-05:00

Etsy Love
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready

I've been having so much fun in the last week or so surfing around on etsy, "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade," that it was inevitable that some of those things were going to come live with us.

Among the treasures I happened upon: a $5 pattern from crafty alien for knitted and felted sea creatures in case anyone was going to the beach with 6 kids in July, cherry earrings from wonderful to match my new red shirt, and the find of the decade, small cotton vintage mushrooms made in Germany in the '50's from small stump. We had some mushrooms like this that we bought in Italy in the '70's that we still put on our Christmas tree every year. Unfortunately they were starting to show their age, so now I have 80 more in mint condition! Woo hoo!

And actually there is one more item that I have kind of on order, but that's still in process so I can't show you that. At $11, with maybe an additional dollar or two for shipping, this remaining item is the most expensive item yet, seeing as everything else shown here cost less than $10 each, even with shipping.

I've decided that virtually any gift I need I can find on etsy. While there is some stuff on there that has that "fireside touch," as my mom calls it (meaning it looks like it was done in the dark), most of what's there is absolutely amazing. It's like the biggest 24-hour craft fair ever. In fact, if there's a downside, it's that there's so much stuff on there that there's no way you can browse through 1200 pages of earrings, for example.

I know that it's not news to lots of people that this site is incredible, but today I just felt like I had to share the love.

Scenes from the end of the year

2007-05-25T10:29:00.000-05:00

Since today is the last day of school for us, I thought I'd celebrate by sharing some photos of the things we've been so busy with in the last few weeks.

Nate finished his first season of baseball. After he broke his arm two days before opening day, he got his short cast on just in time to participate in the last two games before the end of the season. Fortunately for everyone involved it's a pretty low-key league, so we didn't have to worry too much about fast balls, sliding, or any other kind of body or even baseball contact.

Except that Nate actually was a pretty good hitter, as you can tell in this cool picture taken by Tim. Note the literal tongue in cheek.

Charlotte graduated from the pre-K class she's been in since February of 2005. She'll be moving on to kindergarten and, in a very exciting move for all of us, especially me, she'll ride on the same bus as Nate next year, meaning that I only have one bus to put people on and take people off of, thereby saving me about an hour of effort and rushing to get home.

It's hard to read the certificate, but it says "Most Likely to Succeed," an interesting superlative given that everyone else in the same class got the same exact certificate with only the name changed.

And Hattie's class participated in the singing program for all the 3-year-old classes. This performance was a landmark for us, seeing as she actually sang along this time instead of frowning at the floor like she has in past performances. We were very proud.

I was going to include pictures of swim practice, but really we have a whole month left for that. And that's more of a summer event anyway.

So it's official. Summer is here! Happy weekend everybody!

Final Speech Notebook

2007-05-23T13:24:00.001-05:00

Final Speech Notebook
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Well, with the end of the school year two days away, here is the final speech notebook entry of the year.

And since Charlotte will be in kindergarten next year, she'll have a different speech teacher. Meaning that this is also the end of her speech notebook project, which has been going on every school year since February of 2005.

Although I'll be sorry not to have more of these to look back at, I'm not going to miss having to think up and draw these late on Monday nights so Charlotte can take them to school with her on Tuesday mornings.

For anyone who may be going through withdrawal, here's the whole set on flickr. And if I get really motivated, maybe I'll go back through and scan the ones that haven't made it onto flickr yet.

WIP Friday

2007-05-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I did a Work In Progress Friday, but the main thing I'm working on right now is getting the kids through the last week or two of school.

We just got back from a shindig in Nate's class -- it was a Dance-Off (his class is the Rock-n-Rollers). They split the class up into 4 decades: fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties. I picked sixties because Hattie has a groovy tie-dyed shirt*, but in retrospect I should have picked eighties, because I probably still own lots of clothes from that decade. Plus I vividly remember what people wore then, seeing as I was in high school and college. *ahem -- dating self here*

But working within the '60's theme, I would have liked to have gone in a cute dress with go-go boots. However, seeing as I don't have the boots, the cute dress, or a shape that would allow me to wear them without burning people's retinas out, I opted for the hippie look. Which was okay, but it precluded me from going to the grocery store directly afterwards, as I didn't want to show up in full hippie mode.

So now the project is to assemble 7 or more teacher gifts for the end of the year. Last year I made marble magnets for everyone, but this year I decided to buy handmade things instead. A friend of a friend does custom stationery, so I asked her to make notepads for each teacher with their names on them. They turned out great! Here they are, still in their packaging:

My concession to doing something handmade was to stitch fabric scraps onto blank cards I bought at JoAnn's. Kind of a desperate move, but they turned out cuter than I expected. And infinitely better than the blank cards would have been.

Now I just need to wrap the notepads (each with a pack of pens I bought), write the cards and I'll be all done! Too bad I forgot about Charlotte's (male) bus driver. So he may be getting a gift certificate to some as-yet-unnamed box store. Not as creative, that.

________________
*I also used to have a gorgeous tie-dyed shirt from my stint as a waitress at the Laughing Lizard Lounge in Alexandria, VA, but during what must have been some kind of fit, I must have given it to Goodwill. Which is crazy, because like a true pack rat, I NEVER get rid of anything. Five million things in my house and I choose to give away the one thing I've been looking for ever since. Sheesh.

Overheard from downstairs

2007-05-17T16:41:00.000-05:00

Five minutes ago we walked in the door after three hours of consecutive swim lessons and swim practice.

And then I heard this:

"You can't play if you're NAKED!"

"MOOOOOOOMMMM! Charlotte's trying to play and she's NAKED!"

Hoo boy. It's been a long day for all of us.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-05-16T22:28:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook May 15, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

And sneaking in under the wire yet again, here's this week's Speech Notebook entry.

While I mentioned these activities a couple of posts ago, what's noteworthy here is that yesterday I completely forgot about doing Speech Notebook until my head was hitting the pillow at approximately 12:20 am.

So this is what I was able to do in the 10 minutes between when we came downstairs for breakfast and when Charlotte went running out the door to get on the bus. The only part I got colored was the new bathing suit, so we'll just have to use our imagination for the rest of it.

Ohhhh lordy

2007-05-14T13:24:00.001-05:00

May Calendar
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Here's my schedule for the next couple of weeks until school is out. And it's apparent even to me that there's no room for wishy-washy time management.

Hang on, it's going to be a wild ride.

Yikes.

Happy Mother's Day!

2007-05-13T23:36:00.000-05:00

We had a spectacular day today. My family took me out for breakfast and then we spent some time at the Etowah Indian Mounds, followed by dinner at the best Italian restaurant I've been to outside of Italy.

It was a day that helped me remember how lucky I am to have not just three incredible, beautiful children, but also an unbelievably great husband and friend.

And really, regaining that sense of perspective is the best and most restorative gift of all.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-05-09T09:04:00.000-05:00

Time for another Speech Notebook Wednesday. Actually, exactly a week ago was also time, but unfortunately that didn't happen. So once again you get both this week's and last week's.

Seems like for a lot happening around here that there's precious little to blog about. Tim was gone most of the week before last, and my mother very kindly came to help out.

Then last weekend Nate and Tim went camping with the cub scouts, so the girls and I rattled around this house all by ourselves.

One thing that's interesting to note is that while Tim was gone I was much more productive in terms of doing things around the house that needed to be done. Why is that? Wouldn't it make sense that more would get done with two adults than with one? But the opposite is true. Now that I think of it, when Tim and I first started dating, we were so busy going out and doing fun things that the boring household things (like um, paying bills and doing the laundry) didn't get done as often. Maybe that's what's happening here. Except without the going out part. And sometimes the doing fun things part.

Also having only two kids to care for instead of 3 (or even 4, as Tim pointed out) seemed like a holiday. So maybe that also played a part.

Regardless, the boys had a great time on their campout. They ate lots of crackers, donuts, and cookies, even though I sent along apples and carrots to prevent scurvy. They also came home filthy and exhausted, so they must have had a great time.

I saw a great quote the other day (attributed to Not Your Average Dictionary, a source with which I am unfamiliar and also apparently unable to google competently), saying that the definition of 'boy' is a noise with dirt on it.

Obviously written by someone who knew a lot about boys.

Knitting books

2007-04-28T10:27:00.000-05:00

So for the last few months I've been checking knitting books out of the library. En masse. As many as they would give me at a time. I went through everything in our county library and selected anything that looked interesting. The ones I didn't like, I gave right back. The ones I liked, however, I held onto as long as possible. Sometimes longer, so that unfortunately right now my overdue fine balance is $4.80 and climbing. (That would be at ten cents a day, to give you some idea of my slackitude.)

The book that took the longest to get, because apparently there is a very long waiting list for it, is this one:

Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting. And my gosh, no WONDER! It's really a fabulous book. So I renewed it as long as I could, until finally it was due, due, due and it started to rack up a fine. So this morning I thought to myself, well, it's such a great book, I'll just buy it. So I went online, looked it up, and lo and behold (am I the LAST person in the world to figure this out??) there were 9 copies available starting at $225! For one book! Which is apparently out of print. (WHY? When there is this kind of demand?!)

$225!

So I didn't buy it. And now I will have to do without. The book, I mean, maybe not a couple of the patterns. *cough*

Who knew? Apparently everyone but me.

But in happier news, another knitting book I'd ordered a while ago came last week. It's this one:

It's great! And also half in Latvian, for anyone who's interested. The mittens are incredibly gorgeous, so when I'm looking for something to do, I'll just be whipping out a few of these. So my kids can be wearing them in college or similar. If I'm lucky. Really, I can't say enough how pretty these are. And complicated.

If I knit any, you can be sure that I'll be posting about it, because that would really be an accomplishment. Maybe I can play with it this weekend, after we finish all the stuff that has to be done......

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-04-25T20:46:00.000-05:00

I spent this past weekend at a friend's lakehouse with 3 other moms who were also desperately in need of a break. It was great to get away and just relax. We'd forgotten what it was like to be responsible only for ourselves. And in light of all the tragedy and sadness of last week, it really helped to be able to regroup and do some coherent thinking.

So now I'm back, after a short blogging break, with the Speech Notebook entries from both this week and last week.

Post tenebras, lux.

Published!

2007-04-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

A month or so ago Nate read in the News For Kids section of our newspaper that they wanted local kids to send in jokes, probably for April Fool's Day. So Nate cut the application out of the paper, filled it out, and sent it in. He was a little disappointed that they didn't select his joke on the appointed day, but he soon forgot all about it.

UNTIL!

Yesterday at school there was a big package waiting for him on his desk when he arrived. It was from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution thanking him for his contribution, and it included not only a certificate and a t-shirt (Adult Medium, but it's the thought), but also the page of the paper he had been published on. Which was lucky, because not only had we missed it the first time because we were camping, but we had already recycled that paper.

So here's his joke, as seen in the newspaper:

He selected that joke all by himself. And for the record we're lucky he entered this contest before he purchased the 101 Bossy Cow Jokes book that he found last night at the $1 Book Sale at school.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-04-11T19:37:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook April 10, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

I decided to write about Easter this week, and save all the camping stories for another speech notebook day when I couldn't think of anything to write about. Of course, by then I will have forgotten all about our trip.

I still plan to do a camping recap post here, however. Soon. I promise. Once I get a handle on our TAXES. (Sample conversation -- me: What? I've still got almost a week!) Sigh.

Anyway, we had a very nice Easter with our family and Tim's mom and lots of chocolate! And girls in pretty dresses.

Tim took today off so we could go to various meetings, and we managed to have dinner on the table by 5:45 and the kids in bed by 7:15! It was sheer bliss. The girls were asleep in 5 minutes.

Of course it took at least a whole day of dealing with whiny, cranky kids to get us to this point. Nate was Frowny McGrumpypants from the time he woke up until he got on the schoolbus this morning, which is what gave me the idea in the first place.

With luck we'll all be a little cheerier tomorrow.

Crunchified

2007-04-09T16:04:00.001-05:00

granola
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

So today I made my own granola bars. I used Alton Brown's recipe. They were delicious and surprisingly easy, if a little crumbly, so I may need to do a little fine-tuning. Although I did only use half the honey since I ran out. But they'll do very nicely for a quick, on-the-road breakfast that I always seem to be grabbing.

I've been on a granola kick lately, ever since I started buying this at the grocery store. (If you follow the link it looks nasty, but really it's much more appetizing than that in real life.) I thought I was being all healthy until I found it online listed under "sweets." And it is $5.99 a pop, and it only lasts me about 24 hours.

So I did a little research and made my own. I may be onto something here!

Hmmmm. Making my own granola and riding around in a VW van that's almost 25 years old.

Definitely leaning towards crunchy.

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T21:57:00.001-05:00

Thanks, Easter Bunny!
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

The kids got these in their Easter baskets this morning. They're called unazukin, originally from Japan. You ask them a question or tell them a story, and they nod, double nod, shake, or double shake their heads.

I think the story goes that these are forest fairies that live under mushrooms in the forest. But they're very busy, so when their animal friends get together to tell stories, they just listen without saying anything, and nod or shake their heads.

We had lots of fun with them today.

Hope everyone out there had a happy Easter!

Camping Trip!

2007-04-04T23:46:00.001-05:00

Sunday morning
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Lots of pictures, starting with this one, are up on flickr from our camping trip this weekend.

More info to follow, but you can be checking out the photos in the meantime.

Speech Notebook x 2

2007-03-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

Since I skipped last week, here are both last week's and this week's Speech Notebook entries.

In the first one I didn't have a lot to write about except 1) Nate's broken arm, and 2) all the movies we watched that first weekend. Incidentally, we are now the owners of the whole first Star Wars trilogy, in case we want to go to Dragon*Con or anything like that.

By the second weekend, Nate was able to be a little more active. It was gorgeous here, if extremely pollen-y (on the pollen-counting scale where 100 is "extremely high," we have been at 5,000+ for the last few days, no joke). But we were able to do some things outside.

One of our biggest accomplishments was getting the tent back into its original bag, a feat not to be underestimated.

Now I'm off to fold 4 loads of laundry. The fun just never ends around here.

One day at a time

2007-03-26T21:18:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of reasons you haven't heard much from this direction lately. Here's the main one:

This picture of Nate from the other day looks kind of like this one. That's right. Nate broke his arm again a week or so ago. After all, he hadn't broken it since last August, so I guess it was about time. First grade will forever be remembered as the year he broke his arm TWICE.

He broke it playing around in the living room while I was almost done making dinner. As a result he is now the designated bat boy for his baseball team.

In all the commotion I didn't get around to posting Speech Notebook last week, so you get two this week.

I can't believe things are this crazy this far away from the end of the school year. As an example, this is what our week looks like:

Monday -- N to school; 8:15 Charlotte to therapy; 11:30 Charlotte to school; 11:45 home for lunch (Hattie and me); 2:40 meet schoolbuses; 2:50 "children" work on homework including Speech Notebook and Traveling Teddy (all me); 5:00 dinner; 6:00 kids and Tim to baseball, me to bell choir; 8:00 everyone reconvene for baths, bed (kids), dinner (me); afterwards straightening of all rooms in house in preparation for housekeepers tomorrow [Note: this last item NOT COMPLETED due to unauthorized and extended blogging break]

Tuesday -- N, C to school; straighten house (see previous day's note); 9:00 housekeepers here, Hattie to school, me to work; 1:30 leave work, 2:10 pick up Hattie, 2:40 meet schoolbuses; 6:00 babysitter arrives; 6:15 leave for Super Suppers night out with friends (me); 8:30 Tim home from work; 8:35 Tim and kids take babysitter home; 9:35 Tim and kids home

Wednesday -- N, C to school; unspecified Easter basket items due for Charlotte's class; Hattie and me to school to register Charlotte for kindergarten; otherwise regular day except for 3:30 orthopaedic appointment smack in the middle of a particularly congested part of town

Thursday -- 24 filled plastic eggs due for egg hunt in Hattie's class; 9:00 N, C, and H to dentist; then all to (two different) schools; 12:30 pick up Hattie; 2:40 meet schoolbuses, etc.; Tim working late again

Friday -- nothing scheduled!!

Saturday -- 2:00 Hattie to birthday party, one parent must attend; 3:00 Charlotte to birthday party, one parent must attend (Nate is apparently either going to a birthday party uninvited or will be farmed out to a sympathetic neighbor); 4:30 end of Charlotte's party; 5:00 end of Hattie's party

Sunday -- 8:30 to church for bell choir performance at two services (me); 1:15 home from church (me); 3:00 leave for 2-3 day camping trip! (everyone, including dog)

So you see, it's going to be kind of crazy around here. I'll check in when I can.

Google hits

2007-03-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

I don't exactly know what it says about a blog, but it's interesting to see what topics are important to people who find you via Google. To that end, I thought I'd list my most popular Google hits.

Here they are, in no particular order:

ladybug cupcakes
pirate cupcakes (and pirate cupcake cake)
Haight-Ashbury boots
wonky cakes
butterfly cupcake cake
tractor cake
toilet unclogger

Pretty much all cakes (and from one post!), except for the boots and the toilet unclogger. Although I did also recently get these (but only once, each):

picture of viking on 2005 ranger pickup floor mats
(?? -- what the heck? Why on earth did that query get to me?)

mens underpants with flair
(um, not really something I wrote about; probably more just a coincidental word choice -- sorry, men's underpants people!)

But this week the BIG hook has been Leprechaun Traps. Every parent with a kindergartner must be out researching this. And to think that before last year I'd never heard of such a thing!

So let's see -- a year and a half's worth of blogging and the parts that have the greatest universal appeal are one post's worth of cakes, boots, and a clogged toilet. And a leprechaun trap.

Still, I'm happy to have people stop by for whatever reason. All [non-pervy] people are welcome! I hope you find something of interest here.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-03-14T16:31:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook March 13, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

[singing] If it wasn't for Speech Notebook, I wouldn't have no posts at aaaallllllll.........

Well, this week the big news was that my sister is going to have a girl! And there was much rejoicing.

Not that there wouldn't have been rejoicing if it was a boy, but everyone at our house is just FIRED UP about having a new niece! Everyone, that is, except for Nate, who is just going to have to stand tall as both the eldest grandchild on my side of the family, as well as the only boy.

In other exciting news, this week

I made $108 at the kids' consignment sale, at which I sold many hand-me-downs. (woo-hoo!)
Grandma came to visit.
I went to a friend's house Monday night as part of a leftover Bunco group (the group disbanded about a week after they asked me to join -- I don't have a complex about it, I'm just sayin') and Tuesday morning I realized that I was driving to work with no makeup on, looking like I felt.
a new housekeeper came to clean today, 3 weeks after her predecessor had been here.
despite the obvious lack of housekeeping by the residents of this house, there wasn't much knitting done.

So pretty much the same ol', same ol'.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-03-07T15:04:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook March 6. 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Looking back, it's a good thing that I have Speech Notebook Wednesday, or else there wouldn't be any posts for the last three weeks! I swear, more stuff does go on here than just what's in the speech notebooks. In fact, that's probably why sometimes there's not a whole lot posted in between Wednesdays.

Anyway, this week I wrote about Nate's first real day of baseball practice, which was late Monday afternoon. It was interesting to see how little all the kids looked. I'm used to Nate being the big one at our house, but on the field they all looked so small! While it was a little chilly yesterday after the sun started to go down, we've been very fortunate weather-wise for the last few days. Today it's truly gorgeous -- sunny and 70.

Maybe spring is here!

Speech Notebook

2007-03-01T16:34:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook Feb. 27, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Once again, I'm behind, but here's Charlotte's speech notebook for class this week. I wrote about when we went to Ted's Montana Grill this past weekend for a nice lunch with my parents and my sister and her husband. We had a lot of fun at lunch. I really like Ted's. They've hit just the right balance so that it's clubby with lots of wood and white tablecloths, but it's not stuffy. And the food and service are GREAT.

And also? I obviously have no idea what a buffalo looks like. I did this late at night after I'd already turned my PC off, so I had to summon up what a bison looked like in my head. Kind of like those games where you close your eyes and draw some common object. So it's labeled in case anyone has trouble figuring out what it is. Also it's there because it takes up lots of space when you run out of ideas for what to draw.

Changing the subject now. It's been rainy, cold, and gray here all day today. I had my weekly (!) two hours this morning when all my children are in school, and which I proceeded to blow entirely with random book fairs and whatnot (mostly the whatnot -- or as it's sometimes known, that timesucker extraordinaire, the INTERNET). Hate that.

It's a good thing yesterday was so gorgeous. It was about 70 degrees and sunny here all day. I went downtown to the Big City to get my hair cut and have a lovely lunch at The Flying Biscuit, a favorite of Tim's and mine from our early marriage days, with my friend lla. I got home in time for the schoolbuses and to grab my neighbor's 3 kids for her, and the 6 children in my care all played happily outside for the next couple of hours with minimal intervention from me. Love that.

So I guess it all evens out.

This post was held up for about 24 hours while Blogger decided I wasn't a spamblogger. Just so you know.

Speech Notebook

2007-02-23T15:45:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook Feb. 22, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

With the kids out for Winter Break Monday and Tuesday of this week, I didn't send Charlotte's speech notebook in until Thursday. So you're seeing it correspondingly late this week.

I always write the speech notebook from Charlotte's perspective, so in this story I left out the part about how we were all having so much fun at the neighbors' house that we didn't get home until after Tim got home from work, only to find his house was dark and his pots were cold.

We pretty much all got in trouble that day, if you call having someone roll their eyes at you getting in trouble.

6 weird things about me

2007-02-19T15:30:00.000-05:00

For the last month or so I've been seeing lots of the "6 weird things about me" meme. Trying to narrow my idiosyncrasies down to just six has kept my head buzzing for a few weeks now (that should be the first weird thing), so I thought I'd go ahead and take a stab at it before I drove myself completely insane. So here you go, six weird things, not consciously in any order.

When I read books in a series and a new one comes out, I feel compelled to read all the others first before I let myself read the new one. Accordingly, I've read the first three Harry Potter books 4 times, since I got them at the same time, and each successive book one time less than its predecessor. But once the newest book is out, I can't start reading them all again until I have the new one in my hand. Crazy, I know, but I can always remember who someone is! Plus it prolongs the anticipation for the new one.
For some reason when I'm brushing my teeth, more often than not I find myself singing "Turkey in the Straw" to myself by the time I'm done. I think it has something to do with the rhythm.
I love mountains and snow and given the opportunity would pick going skiing over going to the beach every time. It may have something to do with my love of winter clothes, especially turtlenecks and sweaters. I also LOVE wearing all kinds of boots and hate wearing flip-flops with a passion.
Unless it's an emergency, I can't fold clean clothes anywhere except on my bed, and then only when it's made. Which is usually, but not all the time. So if my bed's not made all the successive loads of laundry get backed up, sometimes as far back as the pile waiting to go into the washer. Or maybe it's a time management/procrastination issue, which is really more likely.
I always wear socks to bed, even in the summer. The sole (ha ha) exception to this was when I was 7 months pregnant in July. Then I didn't.
I love old things. Old buildings, old houses, old streets, old clothes, old cars, old furniture, old books, you name it. And things done the old-fashioned way. The older, the better. In college I wanted to be an archaeology major, and then a classics major, both of which I was talked out of (as they were supposedly not as universally popular with employers), so I became a history major. I think the appeal is in thinking about the stories, real or imagined, behind everything. I love thrifting and flea markets for the same reason. I really went crazy sightseeing in Europe, because their stuff is REALLY OLD, but since we live in the U.S., Colonial Williamsburg is on my must-see list for the kids. I do have a pretty strong aversion, however, to fake old stuff. It has to be REAL. Which I know Colonial Williamsburg isn't, 100%, but they and all those "living historical villages" like Plimoth Plantation do the best they can. They're mostly not made out of fake stucco over styrofoam like you see at other places.

So there you have it. Six weird things about me. Looking back, maybe mine should be titled, "6 Signs I've Got OCD." Anyone else who wants to play along, consider yourselves tagged.

Evidence of early crafting

2007-02-16T10:42:00.000-05:00

Today I thought we'd take a little trip down memory lane to visit a project I did a long time ago. June of 1977, in fact.

This is a pillow I made when I was 10 years old. Feeling crafty one afternoon, I found an old washcloth and embroidered this turtle on it with some acrylic yarn. You may be able to tell he's eating a flower. There's one petal of it left, just in case you thought that was just grass in front of him.

The back of the pillow is a second old washcloth that I sewed on with more yarn all around the perimeter.

Those would be my initials, down there in the corner. And the date -- June '77. And for reference? This is what I looked like in 1977.

Photo taken against our dining room wall, by my mother.

Have a good weekend!

Alert! Alert!

2007-02-15T15:35:00.001-05:00

Alert! Alert!
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Have you heard the breaking news about Peter Pan peanut butter today? Here's the story.

It seems that salmonella has tainted a very large and widespread batch of Peter Pan peanut butter, and one of those same jars was right in my pantry! Danger! Danger!

(Actually it's kind of exciting. We've had no ill effects from it and I never get to participate in any kind of recall.)

So out it goes. Guess we're lucky that 80% of our household prefers JIF. It was just me that was endangered.

Phew! Dodged that bullet.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-02-14T17:02:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook Feb. 13, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

In this week's entry I made it sound like the girls are pretty good about cleaning up the amazingly horrible mess this "camping" creates, but really they're not so good with the cleaning up.

Like sometimes I can't open the door to their room because of all the detritus on the floor behind the door.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T16:42:00.001-05:00

chocolates on a heart plate
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Love the plate, love, love the chocolates. So much so that we've been through about nine bags of these Dove hearts in the last few weeks. I even got a couple of extra bags, so I figure we'll be done with our valentine's candy right about the time that Easter candy hits its zenith in the stores.

We don't have any huge Valentine's plans for tonight -- I'm thinking I'll feed the kids early and put them to bed so Tim and I can have a nice takeout dinner by ourselves.

Actual adult conversation, maybe some wine. Maybe we'll even shut the door to the laundry room so the washer and dryer are muffled. Anyway, that's what passes for romance around these parts. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

we dressed ourselves!

2007-02-10T11:33:00.001-05:00

we dressed ourselves!
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

This is what happens at our house on Saturday morning when Tim has to work at a job fair and I am too busy reading knitting blogs to get the girls dressed.

Hattie evidently found the stack of clothes that I'd set aside as too small. You might also note that the colors of her outfit match perfectly, while Charlotte is using a fancy blouse to get the layered look.

Nate waited until I was on the phone to try to run outside in shorts. For reference, it's below freezing here today. Fortunately I managed to catch him in time.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-02-07T17:49:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook Feb. 6, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

I wrote about it here, but on Saturday night we went to Nate's Blue and Gold Banquet, which is the big Cub Scout awards extravaganza.

Charlotte was particularly taken (or not, as the case may be) by the evening's entertainment, which consisted of a man from a local animal rescue organization and his many friends, shown here.

He must have done this many times before, because his show was perfectly tailored for his audience (elementary school boys), and half of the animals he brought were reptiles. Those same reptiles, however, were not as popular with the moms in the crowd.

Or with little sisters in attendance. Except for Hattie, of course, who was one of the first in line when given the opportunity to pet the snake.

My take? I'm with Charlotte. The armadillo was super cool, but the snake, the snapping turtle, and the alligator were yucky. Where's the guy with the baby bunnies?

missing teeth

2007-02-06T15:29:00.001-05:00

smiles, everyone!
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Lots of gappy smiles at our house, especially since Nate lost one of his top teeth last night.

Those days of biting into an apple with your side teeth? They're upon us.

Weekend activities

2007-02-05T15:39:00.000-05:00

Just a warning -- this is going to be a mish-mosh post of several random goings-on at our house.

To start off, on Saturday night we went to Nate's Blue & Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts, where they give out all the awards, conduct the annual uniform inspection (he passed),

and entertain people by showing them ~~bowling balls~~ an armadillo. (Really! This animal is so cool! This is a shot of his head!) (I was not, however, as hot on the alligator, the giant snapping turtle, or the snake, but the cub scouts really enjoyed them.)

On Sunday we held the 2nd Annual Cheese Dinner in the Living Room. Too bad it only lasted until bath--, er, halftime.

And today I got this in the mail from superbuzzy!

Half a yard each of the matryoshka fabric, the newspaper one, and a Russian village print. I have to admit that I got that newspaper print because the articles were all about my old stomping grounds in the DC area. Plus it's cute. I must have had red and black on the brain that day, because I also got some strawberry trim. No idea what I'm going to do with it yet, but I'm so excited about it!

And now that the weather's cleared up, a fairly decent shot of my finished socks. Which were much easier than anticipated and which are also particularly warm and comfy. I highly recommend them.

Finally, I did a little work on some parts for a mouse, but that's not overly recognizable yet. More on that later.

Now if I could just apply myself equally well to things that actually need doing (cleaning, dishes, etc.), I'd have something to write home about.

No WIP

2007-02-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

Well, finished my socks. But can I get a decent picture of them? No! It's been gray and rainy here for two days, so no decent light whatsoever. Of course, have we at least had snow? Also no. So we've been trying to figure out how to send the kids to school in winter coats with raincoats on top. The best we've been able to do is to have each child wear the next child up's raincoat. Which works out okay because Nate is too cool to want to wear his raincoat.

So instead of a picture of finished socks, here are a couple of things that are currently inspiring me:

--these mice from Lucinda Guy's Handknits for Kids

(don't they look like they would be an excellent use of Peaches & Creme??)

--these cables from Viking Patterns for Knitting

--and these korknisse ornaments from Elliphantom Knits, a gorgeous knitting blog that is definitely worth checking out. I would have put a picture of her unbelievably cute ornaments here, but I couldn't find an email address to use to ask her permission first, so I thought I'd err on the side of caution. But you should definitely go see!

Hope everyone has a good weekend! I promise to post pictures of my first pair of knitted socks as soon as the weather allows.

More sock progress

2007-01-31T17:48:00.003-05:00

sock two
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

And for everyone who was waiting breathlessly to see how my second sock was coming along, here you go. I couldn't knit at all yesterday, but I was able to do some today. You may be able to tell by the light that it's late afternoon now.

Fortunately, in a weird twist of events, dinner is made, laundry is going, and I'm pretty much on track for the day.

And I'm wearing one normal white sock and one multicolored striped one, in anticipation of being done with this soon.

I hope I'm done soon. See how small my yarn ball is getting? I'll be done soon whether I mean to be or not.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-01-31T15:24:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook January 30, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Sunday afternoon Tim took Charlotte to a birthday party for one of her classmates. Apparently it was refreshingly traditional, with balloons, party games, a cake, and even a clown who made balloon animals and did face painting. It was even on the child's actual birthday!

That might sound normal, even boring to some, but around here we tend to see the Birthday-lympics, with parents constantly trying to one-up each other. So it was nice to see a party that was appropriately celebratory, without being over the top.

Something to remember for next year's round of birthdays around here.

Two naps and a party

2007-01-29T11:54:00.000-05:00

Lately Hattie's been having a little trouble transitioning out of the nap phase. At almost three and a half, she doesn't really need a daily nap, but frequently she just can't make it much past 6:30 pm without falling asleep. Of course, if she does sleep even 10 minutes she's up until 11, which throws her off the next day too.

So we've been finding her in interesting places. On Friday afternoon she was extremely difficult. After I finally had to reprimand her, she stomped out of the room. A few minutes later we found her like this:

Then yesterday afternoon Charlotte had a birthday party to go to. So Tim and Charlotte took off, and Hattie and Nate played fairly well together while I did whatever it is that I do (most likely surfing or knitting, but NOT folding laundry or making dinner). Right before I heard the party people returning, I went out into the hall where Hattie had been reading to find this:

Fortunately that short nap only kept her up until about 9 pm. It could have been so much worse.

And here's Charlotte, who had an excellent time at the refreshingly traditional birthday party (in someone's home! with a clown! who wasn't scary!), modeling both the butterfly painted on her face, and the very traditional and extremely popular party favor.

Just another regular Sunday in this kickin' household.

________________________
It's kind of a coincidence that Hattie's wearing her coat in both of these pictures. But I find that when she's crabby enough to refuse to take off her coat that it frequently means she's tired. So it's on in these shots.

Continued progress

2007-01-28T15:59:00.001-05:00

sock one!
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

I finished this first sock last night while watching TV. If it looks a little short, it is, even though it fits (I have small feet). I was afraid to make it too long because my ball of yarn was looking small and I still had another sock to do. If it turns out that I have plenty left, I might go back and make it a row or two longer.

Verdict: I like it, and it's very comfortable. The yarn continues to be super-soft. Turning the heel wasn't hard at all and there are no holes! (I hope I didn't jinx myself for the other sock.) I kept waiting to get to the hard part, and before I knew it, I was done!

Although this is a beginner pattern, so there was no kitchener stitch required. And no fancy stuff on the leg or foot to mess up. Still, the simple pattern allowed me to focus on fundamentals like turning the heel and knitting the gusset, so it served its purpose.

Now I just need to finish the other sock and I can wear them out! Tim declared me "interesting" (read "geeky") for knitting my own socks. We'll just have to see about that.

Sock progress

2007-01-25T11:44:00.001-05:00

sock progress
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Well, this is how far I've gotten on my first sock. Of course, so far it's all been pretty straightforward -- just a little ribbing and then straight knitting. No gussets, short rows, or anything funky yet, which will be the true test.

You can see how beautiful this yarn is. It knits like a dream. It's very soft and consistent and it just flows through my fingers. It even stays nicely on my cheap-o needles when I'm knitting in the carpool line, at stoplights, standing up, you name it.

Clear signs of an obsession

2007-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

Finally -- some fairly decent pictures of my haul from yesterday's little spree. Here you see 1) the Wedgewood blue Pastaza, 2) the Sockotta in primary colors, and 3) the new felting book.

And these are the balls of cashmerino aran. The blue and green were the luscious colors that the sample scarf was done in, and the red is the exact color of my winter coat. So I'm going to see if I can't work that in somehow.

And the Lorna's Shepherd Worsted. It's really the most beautiful yarn. I was so excited about it yesterday that I couldn't leave it in its skein. I had to wind it into a ball immediately. And then I cast on for my first sock, which is what you see here. Blogger was having some difficulties earlier this afternoon, however, so I was able to do some more work on it. Maybe as a motivational tool to myself (and to keep myself from wimping out on this project) I'll periodically post my progress. Right now I just finished 8 rows of ribbing and am on to the stockinette portion of the leg. I'll post pictures soon.

And THEN, as Hattie and I pulled into the driveway today after a morning of running errands, I saw a box leaning against my garage door that contained THIS:

$35 (if you count shipping) worth of Peaches & Creme cotton yarn, straight from Elmore-Pisgah where they make it! I'm SO excited! I have all kinds of ideas for this. (There are 4 more of those yellow ones that didn't make the picture.)

And you know what? Eleven months ago I was disagreeing with this test result, but as it turns out it was eerily prophetic!

(For anyone who's concerned about my mental health, yarn-wise, I'm not buying ANY more for a LONG time!)

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-01-24T16:28:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook January 23, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

The speech notebook version of our adventures at the Pinewood Derby. Charlotte was having so much fun holding hands with a little boy from her class that she didn't have much time to watch any races.

Check back later for some fun pictures of yarn, once Blogger decides to come back to work.

Yarn Retail Therapy

2007-01-23T16:59:00.000-05:00

Found myself with a little time on my hands in Buckhead this afternoon, so I swung by a yarn shop I hadn't already visited -- Why Knot Knit.

And wow! I still think I prefer Knitch, but I was able to find a BUNCH of stuff that I couldn't live without.

If we had any kind of decent light here, I would have taken pictures of the newest additions to my stash, but this borrowed shot will have to suffice until I can take some. I came out of there with a new book of things to felt, a ball of sock yarn (to make more mini sweaters with), a skein of some gorgeous Cascade Pastaza in Wedgewood Blue (it's part llama!), five (I know!) balls of Debbie Bliss cashmerino to make myself a Mistake Rib scarf like they had there, one free pattern for the aforementioned scarf, one purchased pattern for beginners socks, and one skein of the most expensive yarn I've ever bought -- Lorna's Shepherd Worsted, which is 100% Superwash wool, seen here. (Although not these colors. Mine is rainbow-y, but in a muted, earthy-tone kind of way if that makes any sense -- Color 18, Watercolor, for you googlers out there.) It's unbelievably beautiful!

So let's see -- that would be the following upcoming projects: a new scarf, several (like 20) mini sweaters, something with the Pastaza that I just couldn't live without, some felted projects, and my first pair of socks.

That should keep me busy for a while.

Race day!

2007-01-20T11:16:00.000-05:00

Today was a fine day for racing. Which was fortunate, as it was Pinewood Derby day for Nate's cub scout pack. We'd been working for weeks on his car, which you can see here.

All hand done! With no power tools!

Over the past few weeks as we worked on Nate's car maybe we should have taken notice, instead of shaking our heads, as we saw numerous books in the bookstore about Pinewood Derby cars, and whole aisles in the craft stores devoted to the Pinewood Derby.

But being new to scouting, we didn't, and we gave it our best shot knowing basically nothing about this event. Here we have Nate's car lined up for a race against another little boy's from his den.

Unfortunately Nate's car didn't win for design or speed this year. But we got lots of ideas, and some sense of what all goes into this event.

And really it is a very fine line deciding how much parental involvement there should be. Do you let the child do most of it himself with minimal parental guidance so they can learn and be proud of their achievement, or do you take over so he has some chance of competing? Because there was lots of stuff there that didn't seem to have been done by elementary school children. (I know that sounds like sour grapes, but jeez, check out this entry! And this one!)

And the one you see here. A very, very cool entry, but I have to wonder how much the child did. This is displaying my ignorance of the Pinewood Derby industry (yes, it's an industry!), but this car had some kind of shiny plastic coating perfectly molded around it, resulting in a mirror finish. Is that paint? What the heck IS it?

But Nate had a great time watching the races and hanging out with his buddies. And I have to say that I was surprised at how exciting it was to watch the cars competing, even when I didn't know the boys whose cars they were. (I found myself saying to Tim quite a few times, "Watch that one with the blue top! It's FAST!") So I'm glad we did it.

But next year we might have to kick it up a notch or two.....

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-01-18T08:57:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook January 16, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

In all the excitement yesterday I forgot about Speech Notebook Wednesday! Plus three posts in one day might have made people keel over.

So here it is today. Back when we went to IKEA we purchased a new desk, which Tim and I put up and organized over the long weekend. Getting a new desk for ourselves started a chain reaction that eventually affected pretty much everyone, desk-wise, that is.

What's kind of nice is that we're all excited because we all have better desks now! And they're even nice and clean!

Ladies who lunch/blog

2007-01-17T16:57:00.001-05:00

Dishcloths!
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Went downtown for a haircut today and had a FABULOUS time meeting lla. We've been corresponding for a while now, but this was our first visit in person. We chatted and chatted, in that way that you do when you are both talking so fast that it's only on the way home that you think, "I forgot to say this" or "ask about that."

She gave me a couple of her famous dishcloths, seen here. Thanks, lla! Check out that fantastic presentation! I could learn a thing or two from this lady!

My very small gift to her was plucked out of my purse, unadorned in any way. But I thought I was doing pretty well because I didn't have to pull any dog hair or a half-sucked candy off of it.

We had so much fun at lunch that we didn't get across the street to Knitch. I was constrained by having to be back in Suburbia in time to get Charlotte off the bus.

Next time, lla, next time!

Birthday recap

2007-01-17T09:07:00.000-05:00

In yet another entry in the "bad mom" column, I've been remiss in writing about Charlotte's 5th birthday parties (that's right, plural), which were not this past weekend, but the previous one.

She had one party on Saturday for the family. The theme was pink and purple, which was carefully selected approximately 12 hours before the first party. Gone are the days when I used to craft meticulous theme-appropriate invitations weeks in advance, design and prepare a full menu and decorations that also matched the theme and then give people plenty of notice in case they wanted to wear appropriate theme-matching clothing.

15 birthdays later I throw a birthday party together the best I can, painstakingly selecting the menu from our fine collection of takeout menus smashed in a kitchen drawer. The cakes are simpler, but always well-qualified for the Wonky Cake gallery. Witness:

Yikes! I think the flourescent lighting adds a lot to the Halloween quality of this picture. And it does kind of look like it belongs in a new saloon. Charlotte wanted a white cake, so I made cream cheese frosting so it wouldn't be too, too sicky-sweet.

Charlotte really, really liked it, so it was redeemed by that, if by nothing else.

The next day we had the party for her friends. Before my kids were born I thought it would be a good idea to stick to the concept of having only as many birthday guests as the honoree is old. Well, by that measure Charlotte turned 19 this year. It was her first party for friends, and she wanted to include everyone. We didn't have the heart to tell her no.

I might have been more motivated to stick to my guns if we'd been having it in our home, but since it was in a big room somewhere else with trampolines embedded in the floor, someone else orchestrating, and only 90 minutes in length, we caved. Next year we can be more principled.

Of course we had to get a new cake for the 2nd party. So we got one from the grocery store, known for their wonderful cakes. Here's the shot of that one, same colors, much more tastefully applied.

My cake tasted pretty good, but this one was YUMMY. Love that whipped cream-type frosting! And the kids all seemed to like it too.

Charlotte had a fabulous time and everyone behaved themselves, so I would definitely consider it a success. Not something I would want to do all the time, but worth it, without a doubt.

Happy birthday, sweetie!

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2007-01-10T12:45:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook January 9, 2007
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

We did so many fun things over the Christmas break that I couldn't figure out which one to profile in this week's speech notebook. So I did several.

More about the birthday bashES later.

A New Year

2007-01-02T15:59:00.000-05:00

Well, the Christmas decorations are down as of about 12:30 last night, Tim is back at work today, and our days are slowly starting to slip back into a normal pace. With January here I'm optimistically full of good intentions and I'm feeling all organize-y.

Last night I decided at 5 p.m. that we needed some of those Christmas ornament boxes with all the little segments in them to put away all our ornaments. No more wads of toilet paper in ancient boxes for us! Except after a trip to our local Target, an Ace Hardware, Home Depot, and then another Target, I realized that everyone else had been all organizey ahead of me, and there were none of those boxes to be had. Except on the internet, and I wasn't about to sit around for the next 10 days with our glass ornaments in heaps on trays. Surely a recipe for disaster if there ever was one.

So I made my own segments by cutting slots into strips of cardboard and fitting them together. It's not fancy and it took for-freaking-ever, but it's effective. And now it's done for next year. Here's a lovely photo so you can see my meticulous handiwork:

Two levels, even!

And last week we ventured downtown (to the big city!) to IKEA, where we braved the crowds and a 30-minute checkout line to get a new desk. Here's what we've been using for the last two years:

Unglamorous and too small, even if it wasn't a refugee from 1983. So we bought this to replace it: Great! Useful and efficient! Except it looks like this currently:

So there's a little project to look forward to.

And we have a birthday party, actually two, this weekend -- one for family and one for five-year-olds, because we wouldn't really want to inflict either group on the other. So we have that going on too.

But back to resolutions. Usually I don't break them because I rarely make any in the first place. It's more of a pragmatic approach.

This year, however, feels a little different for some unknown reason. Maybe it's because my kids are finally getting old enough that I don't have to have one or more touching me at any given hour of the day. Maybe it's because I'm finally sick of having too much junk in my house. For whatever reason, I'd like to make a decided effort to do the following:

Exercise more. We're off on the right foot on this one. We purchased a family membership to the Y on Dec. 30, so as to take advantage of the free month promotion. We haven't actually gone yet, although the kids had such a great time in the kids' areas that they are really bugging me to take them. Which should make it easier to get there.
Eat more vegetables. We realized last year when Charlotte was on the yeast-free diet that we'll eat just about anything, and it's kind of fun to have fresh, organic vegetables for dinner that aren't the usual carrots/broccoli/green beans that we have every other night. So we joined a CSA, specifically this one, and starting in February we'll pick up a box of fresh vegetables every week. I've vowed to use every fruit and vegetable we get, but Tim is skeptical, so we'll see how it works out.
Stay on top of organization. This would include opening any boxes that remain from our move in January of '05, but also staying on top of piles of mail and other miscellany, specifically the one currently residing in my laundry basket from approximately October (but probably earlier). One manifestation of this would be if I did our taxes before April 14th. That's the plan, anyway.

There are lots of other things I could improve. But really those are the ones I plan to concentrate on. Notice I didn't list "lose weight." I'm hoping it will be a by-product of eating better and exercising more.

So there you have it. Wish me luck! And Happy New Year to all of you!

Christmas morning

2006-12-25T22:07:00.001-05:00

Christmas morning
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

When your day starts out with cardamom bread, you know it's going to be a good day.

Today we enjoyed our families, good food, and being together.

Merry Christmas!

Speech Notebook Day

2006-12-21T22:32:00.000-05:00

As usual, a day late. And you get two this week, thanks to last week's sickfest.

Last week I wrote about our fun day downtown, which you can read more about here.

And then this week I wrote about how Tim took the kids to play at his folks' all day while I stayed home, recuperating and making Christmas presents.

I'm almost done with Christmas shopping, I only have one miniature sweater left to make, and while I haven't actually made any Christmas cookies yet, I have 3 whole days left with only a few things scheduled. So maybe this year we'll have Christmas cookies instead of New Year's cookies. Maybe.

Working on it

2006-12-19T12:34:00.001-05:00

sweaters
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

For the past several days, the Christmas fever has set in. Literally and figuratively. Last Thursday I was laid out with the stomach flu, had a fever of 102, and was too sick to watch TV.

Gradually, however, my strength and appetite have returned and even though I lost some critical shopping days, I am making up for lost time.

In the past week I have

knitted and given away two scarves,
stenciled 7 shirts,
made two miniature sweaters, and
written 40 Christmas cards (those would all be this morning).

So while I have been absent from the blogging world (too sick to surf! Imagine!), I have not been totally unproductive. While I don't want to jinx it, for once I may not be weeks behind when Christmas arrives!

Saturday Fun

2006-12-09T23:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was an unusually exciting day for us. As a rule we don't go out all day as a family, but yesterday we left the house at 10 a.m. and didn't get home until 9:30 p.m.

With everyone dressed up in their good sweaters

we headed downtown to see Dan Zanes in concert at the Ferst Center at Georgia Tech. Dan Zanes and his band have done several family music CDs, all of which we own and listen to regularly in the car. So when Tim saw that he was coming to Atlanta, he thought it would be fun for us all to go.

And Dan did not disappoint. You might think that because we've heard all his songs umpteen times we would be bored, but that was not the case. He really put on a very good show that wasn't too loud (Charlotte was very concerned about this before it started), and which got everyone up and dancing in the aisles.

You can see more fun pictures of dancing and of Dan and his band here.

After the concert, which got out about noon, we shopped briefly at the Tech bookstore and then headed over to find Knitch, a yarn store which Bad Fortune Cookie very highly recommended and which I had been anxious to visit. Since everyone else didn't want to go to the yarn store, they all parked and waited for me at Hand in Hand, a very authentic, English-style pub, while I ran across the street.

And WOW! Knitch certainly lived up to the hype. They had some gorgeous yarns in there and the people were extremely helpful and friendly, quite a switch from the last yarn store I went to. And in a major departure from those past few yarn stores, they didn't try to sell me some acrylic novelty yarn that's a nightmare to knit. So now I have a new favorite yarn store.

When I got back to Hand in Hand with my purchases, I found a cold beer waiting for me and, about a minute later, my blue cheese hamburger that Tim had ordered for me. It really doesn't get much better than that.

We enjoyed our lunch so much that we forgot to take pictures, and then we jumped back in the car to drive about an hour north to the home of some friends who had invited us over for dinner. We spent a fun evening with them and then headed home. By the time we pulled into the garage we had 3 kids sacked out, even Charlotte who never sleeps in the car.

Definitely a day to remember.

Speech Notebook uh, Wednesday

2006-12-07T23:04:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook Dec. 5, 2006
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Holy moly. Apparently the reduction in the number of posts for the month of December, she has begun.

Last week Tim was out of town for several days, partly for work and partly so he could sit in the rain in Jacksonville to watch the abysmal performance of Georgia Tech's quarterback. That, coupled with a sudden surge in Christmas projects, has really done a number on my posting habits. Or the lack thereof. {ahem}

Anyhoo, this past weekend we put up our Christmas tree. I would have taken actual photos of it to show you, but seeing as how I still can't walk in that room because I haven't finished decorating enough to put all the Christmas decoration boxes away, you will have to check back later on that. Seriously, it's really bad.

On the bright side, I have purchased everything I need for Christmas projects. All I have to do now is actually do them. In fact, I think I'll go work on them now. More soon, I promise.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2006-11-29T23:49:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook November 28, 2006
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Technically there are still 13 minutes left of Wednesday, so I'm legit.

If you want a more comprehensive account of our trip, see the previous post. However, if you'd rather learn about it through primitive drawings, then here you go.

The Dock House

2006-11-29T09:09:00.000-05:00

We spent our Thanksgiving weekend with all of Tim's family in a lakehouse we rented on Lake Nantahala in North Carolina. It was gorgeous. Just being allowed to stay in the house made me literally feel like I was living a Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. Well, rich, anyway. This is the view off of the kitchen and dining area and also, incidentally, what I saw when I opened my eyes every morning. Tim and I were fortunate enough to be staying in the master suite, and the bed was perfectly positioned so that you could look out the window while you were lying in bed.

It was especially unbelievable at about 6 am when all the stars were still out. Tim said it looked like a planetarium.

This was the view from the hot tub, which was also in the master suite. No one used it, certainly not me, as I consider hot tubs to be giant petri dishes, but I was able to hang out the window to get this shot.

This is a view of the deck outside the kitchen and dining area. It also stretched the length of the house past the game room, which came equipped with both a pool table and a giant TV, perfect for optimum football game watching. Unfortunately, all our teams lost this weekend, but that's a different story.

Here's an external view of the house, which Tim took while we were out in a canoe. The last time I was in a canoe was approximately 1982, and I don't know that Tim has ever been in one. Accordingly I was scared to death that we were going to tip over and dump our camera in the lake, which fortunately did not happen.

And finally, a photo proving that we used the deck properly, probably in exactly the way the architects planned.

We were able to spend lots of time with family and really, we had more than our share to be thankful for.

Speech Notebook Wednesday

2006-11-22T11:14:00.001-05:00

Speech Notebook Nov. 21, 2006
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

In many ways this past weekend was a perfect fall weekend for us. We were blessed with incredible weather, Tim and Nate (and friends) went to the Georgia Tech/Duke football game on Saturday to celebrate Nate's birthday, and on Sunday Tim and the kids raked leaves in the yard.

Since Charlotte didn't get to go with Nate and his friends to the game, I couldn't write about that for Speech Notebook, so I resorted to the leaf-raking story. Here it is in all its glory.

In other fall news, so far today Tim has been to not one, but two grocery stores, and there's a chance he may have to go back. I'm packing for our trip to a cabin on a lake in North Carolina, where we'll celebrate both Thanksgiving and Tim's parents' 45th anniversary with all his family. In marked contrast to past trips, I actually have all day today to get everything done and I've got a really good start on it!

Unfortunately for me I haven't figured out a way to reconcile my OCD tendencies and my extreme procrastination. For some reason I feel the need to have every item of clothing in the house clean before I pack, probably so I can take anything I want on the trip. So almost every day before a trip I spend all day washing, only to find myself trying to pack starting at about 11 pm. Surely there's a better way.

The solution? Have one whole day before we travel dedicated to preparing, and be sure to have Tim home the whole time! If that doesn't do it, there's no hope.

GT Game
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

WIP -- aargh!

2006-11-17T09:18:00.000-05:00

I didn't think that it would be that difficult to get from this (felted thrift-shop sweater):

to this (handmade fleece mittens from Maine):

but really, THIS is RIDICULOUS!

Free time

2006-11-16T16:44:00.001-05:00

tissue holders
Originally uploaded by 3 to get ready.

For the first time in about two months I had three hours of time all to myself today. Everyone was in school, no one had to be anywhere, and most importantly, I didn't have to be anywhere.

So what did I do with this precious time? Made travel tissue holders, of course! Actually I made four of these about a month ago, but through some technical error on my part they were too small for tissues.

Rather than throw them out, I held onto them until I could figure out what to do. Today I ripped out the pertinent seams, juggled some things around, and ta-daaa! now they work. There were a couple of them that I had to take completely apart and add some other fabric to before they were big enough.

Cold season, here I come!

Seven!

2006-11-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

So today Nate turned seven. He had a fun time at school (complete with cupcakes for the class), a fun time after school (went to a school function with a friend), and sausage gravy and biscuits for dinner tonight. Then we had a big chocolate cake and he opened his presents.

Here's a picture of his cake, which puts a capital W on wonky. My new idea was to a) use thinner icing so I wouldn't dig up the top of the cake while icing it like I usually do, and b) decorate it with a big "7" stencil done with powdered sugar. Maybe if I'd gotten more powdered sugar on the cake than on the floor it would have looked better. And maybe if the icing hadn't been so thin it would have set better and not stuck to the bottom of the paper I cut the 7 out of as I was sprinkling on the powdered sugar. I ended up having to put candles all around it for better definition. The verdict -- a good concept with marginal execution.

But really it's the birthday that counts. I have to keep my priorities straight.

Happy birthday, Nate!