CarpeAcum

Ketchup?

I think the world has passed me by and I'm in a whirl of trying to catch up. Normally, just trying to keep up is a challenge, but right now I'm so far behind that keeping up sounds like bliss.

First there was the dance show which consumed our lives for about 3 weeks in June. Then there was a lovely slower week when we attempted to get through the end of school (made it!). Then Punkin and I tripped off to scout camp for a week (missing the last 1/2 day of school). Then I was home for 3 days, doing laundry and cleaning and shopping and whatnot, then off to Prosser to visit Shelley for a week (hi, Shelley! Thanks again!) and finish up some sewing. Which I did. Sew, I mean. Pictures later.

Now I've been home for two days (I had to think about that--what day is it?!?), I've barely started laundry, my sewing stuff is in the entry way, and I just can't quite get my bearings <g>. Today's goal is to put away the sewing stuff and maybe clean some things. Get buttons for the two shirts I made for The Beard; set up the sewing studio to complete quilt squares for Punkin's new bedcover. Take pictures and record things so I can remember what I have accomplished in the past two months.

What day is it? Catch up day! Catch Up Day 1.0.

My New Favorite Blog

The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

If you can even stand cats a little bit, you must go and see these kittens.

Catch Up Bullets

I don't think I've done a bullet post before, but I think I'll try one now. Brain dump bullet post.

1. Now I'm sure I haven't done a bullet post before. I had to figure out how to do the bullets.
2. April 21--the dryer broke (sigh). I called in the dryer repair guy. In cleaning up the laundry room for his arrival, I bent the fingers of my right hand back, causing some great pain and creative language. Punkin was thankfully at school.
3. May 21--I went to see the doc. The hand still hurt. She gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and told me not to play the piano or type (!?!).

4. I tried to learn to mouse with my left hand. That helped the pain more than anything. I think that holding my middle finger up while I mouse was the worst thing I was doing.

5. The doc commented on my "flexion" (or some similar term)--my fingers bend backwards. She said that that might have made the injury worse, since on a Normal Person, the tendons would have refused to bend as far as mine did. It has been a life-long struggle to make my fingers round on the piano, since they bend back so easily. It turns out that there is just nothing positive about the whole "flexion" issue.

6. My fingers still hurt. The NSAID that she prescribed is one that The Beard had a horrible reaction to (Really. Horrible.), so I've been afraid to try taking it.

7. We have 6 dance shows this weekend. Punkin is in 5 and I am tap dancing in 2 of them. Yay.

8. We had 6 dance show rehearsals last weekend. All of us are completely trashed, even The Beard, who didn't dance. None of us can remember what day it is.

9. Punkin turned 12.

10. The weekend before her birthday, she had 4 friends over for a sleepover party. It started right after a school dance. The 5 of them had a great time deciding who liked whom, and who had looked at whom, who ate more pizza (I love that about this age--no concerns about eating issues yet), and all the stuff that goes with a middle school "dance."

11. No one actually danced.

12. Of the 5 girls, either 3 or 4 of them had on the same shirt for the party that they had worn for pictures before school started. I'm not sure what that means, but it was funny. I collected up ASB cards so they wouldn't get lost, and we noticed the shirt thing.

13. Punkin keeps her ASB card in her binder, so having it out gave her the opportunity to lose it. I tried to minimize this opportunity for all the girls, then I almost forgot to give them back on Saturday morning.

14. I keep typing ASG instead of ASB. Where's my brain?

15. When the girls got home from the dance, we had a pile of chocolate chip cookies with candles on them.They ate the whole pile of cookies--about 3 each. Again, no eating issues here.     

16. They were hungry. I should have made a couple pizzas or something.

17. The next morning, we made a dozen scrambled eggs, 1.5 pounds of bacon (40 slices!) and a double recipe of pancakes. Growing girls. None of them are growing the wrong way; they are all growing UP. The shortest one is 5'5", and they're all 12. Yike.

18. I had to get in that bacon thing. I was amazed.

19. Orange is the new pink at our house. Punkin is all about all things orange. Here is the birthday giftage:     

20. Punkin went camping with another family over Memorial Day weekend, and learned to shoot a gun. Well, she shot a gun, I'm not sure there was much learning. She came home with a trashed out Pepsi can, very proud.          

21. The pictures are really funny. Too bad I can't share them here (I'm still commited to not showing Punkin's face or name on the internet). There was a BB rifle, and she didn't steady it against her shoulder. I hope she never tries to fire a real rifle like that.

22. Our family doesn't own guns. We decided that having her learn with someone who knew what he was doing was probably a good idea. The other family asked about it and were very open with us.

23. Camping at this particular site included something called the "Pee Tree." It was *that* kind of camping.

24. Our calendar has been such that The Beard calls me nearly every day to find out what's on the calendar for the day. Even with only one child, our scheduling has become a finely honed system.

25. Piano lessons are winding down for the year. In fact, I don't have any today (and neither does Punkin!), and I only have 3 tomorrow. Then they're complete for the year.

26. I think I'll stop here. Maybe I'll bullet some more later as things occur to me. This is much easier than trying to organize!

12 Years. . .

Exactly 12 years ago, I was lying in a delivery room, holding my newborn daughter. The epidural had not yet worn off, and the shock and wonder hadn't either. It was late at night, which meant that we couldn't make too many phone calls. Punkin arrived 3 weeks early (we joke that it is the last time she was early for anything!), and I had already had one false alarm, so we didn't call people to tell them I was in labor until I was really in labor, and then it was too late to call. So the phone calls were a complete surprise to everyone. I called my mom last, because she was in Kenya, and I knew that she would be awake. We, the new and terrified parents, were certainly not going to go to sleep any time soon. I still remember the lame little squished sandwich they gave me at 11:00 p.m. I had not eaten anything for 12 hours, while simultaneously performing the most rigorous work I had ever done in my life. I used to laugh at my SIL's request for dinner after labor, but no more! And I really wanted more than a squished sandwich, but that is what there was.

Fast forward 12 years, and Punkin is a beautiful young woman, unsure and confident at the same time. Tall for her age (or any age: she's already taller than 3 of the adult women in our family), poised, smart and fun to be around, with a fierce sense of humor, she is growing into a wonderful woman I am proud to know and prouder to have had some influence on.

Happy 12th, Punkin! I love you.

XXOO  --Mom

Dolls

I finished my 6 dolls and got them to our ASG liaison who got them to the Honduras. Here are the 83 dolls before she stuffed them into a box to go in the mail:

 

If you feel like playing "Where's Waldo," you can correlate the fabrics from my last post with the six dolls in this picture. Or you can just wait until I get around to uploading the pictures of my dolls from the camera. (Punkin helped to arrange these for the picture.)

Now for the details, before I forget. I used Punkin's knitting machine to knit some acryl-ICK yarn, some brown, some black. Then I soaked it in a bowl, squished out the water and threw it in the dryer with some towels or something. Then it sat for a few days. I'm sure that's integral to the procedure.

For the boys: I cut a strip of cardboard that was twice as wide as I wanted the hair to be long (Why, yes, that is an Orville Redenbacher popcorn box from Costco--why do you ask?). Then I wrapped the hair gently around the cardboard and zigzagged down the middle of it. Then I cut it at each wrap. It was a little unruly, but I sewed this strip onto the top of the head by hand. I like how it turned out.

For the girls: I used my 11 x 17 rotary cutting mat and gently wrapped the hair around the shorter way. Then I cut it only once. This should make hair that's 20" or so long. I grabbed a generous hank of it and braided it, fastening it off with some sort of matching ribbon. Then I sewed it to the top of the head by hand. On at least 1 or 2 of them ( I think all 3--picture as proof), I used some of the leftover hair from the boys to make bangs for the girls. Cute!

Someone else had used brown corduroy for the back of the head. Sweet idea! It looked really good, like there was hair, but without having to make it.

I enjoyed the creativity of making the dolls, and the idea that I had nearly all the makings in my home was cool, but disturbing. I was glad to be able to put stuff together that I already had, but was taken aback when I realized that making 6 dolls had not made a dent in my considerable holdings. In fact, I may have ended up with more than I started with, because I finished off a bag of stuffing and had to buy another! Anyway, a good project that got me into the sewing room, and benefited someone else.

Pictures to come. And now they're here!

My Own Private Sewing Retreat

I am missing the ASG Spring Retreat this weekend. I am so bummed. But I promised myself I would sew here at home, and I have gotten a little bit done. I also have new high scores on a couple of games, but that's no one's fault but my own.

I volunteered to make a few dolls for a friend's daughter to take to the Honduras. They hand out the dolls to the kids there, so the more dolls the merrier. She created a .pdf file of the pattern and posted it on our ASG website, so I got the pictures, patterns and instructions from there. I sew, I sing, and I can do page layout on the computer, but I do NOT draw, so The Beard drew faces for me.

 

Three boys and three girls. I cut out bodies and scarves from scraps of fabric that I had lying around (seriously: lying around in my sewing room--clean up!)

There are all the pieces. And here's the first finished one (except for the hair):

Cute, no?

I found that I'm not liking the stuffing process, so I'm going to sandwich it in between other sewing activities. I should still have them all done by tomorrow. Yay!

More dolls and more sewing later.

Number Bracelets

Do you ever find an internet link that you think is really cool, but you're afraid that you'll forget where it is when you want it?

No? Well, I do. All the time.

Someone posted this link to a Girl Scout list that I'm on, and I think it looks really cool, but I can't spend time on it right now. So I'm going to post it for myself so I can find it later! Hey, it's my blog, and I can blog about boring math games if I want to.

Number Bracelets Game

Book Recommendations

I just posted this as a comment on Teri's blog, so I thought I would copy it here in case anyone wanted to see my list of Recently Read Books That I Liked. I might have gotten carried away--who me?

The Thirteenth Tale, Margaret Setterfield
My Name is Will, Jess Winfield
The House at Sugar Beach, Helene Cooper
Homestead, Rosina Lippi (great lit)
The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square, Rosina Lippi (good read)
Atonement, Ian McEwan (I liked it. Maybe it will ‘atone’ for the one you just finished. Maybe you shouldn’t read it next, though–g–).

Have you read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon? It’s a great series. Very well written and researched, and a fun story, too. A little suspension of disbelief required, but I’m okay with that, especially for wonderful characters and a story that makes you want to keep reading.

I read Trans-Sister Radio on your recommendation. It was a good read, and it made me think. I was on the edge of uncomfortable most of the book –g–.

I’m reading Botany, Ballet, and Dinner from Scratch by Leda Meredith. I started it last night, and I’m probably 1/4 of the way through. Fun little book so far, though. Memoirs with recipes.

Also on my nightstand is Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Freeman. Loved the movie–I’m not sure why it was so slammed. This book is a biography, not a novel.

Okay, I’ll stop now. One of those will surely appeal to you. . .or not.

Preparing for March

Nothing happens in March, and February is the time during which we prepare for all that nothing.

I think that there is a common misconception that scheduling things in March is a good idea because it's such a "dead" month--after the holidays, and before spring hits. The truth is that everything seems to hit in March because around here, it's the month with no holidays. We don't even have a 3-day weekend in March.

In addition to the regular school activities, there will be a choir concert in March (end of the quarter), play rehearsal (Punkin has a line in the play!), dance exams, piano adjudications, and piano Chapter Honors Competition.

Play rehearsal is 3 days a week--the days when the activity bus runs. So far, Punkin hasn't had to be at all of them, but as we get nearer to the peformance dates, I'm sure there will be more rehearsals, too.

Dance Exams are a Big Deal around here. Dance is one of Punkin's big challenges. She works HARD for her dance exams, because dance is difficult for her. And because we make her work hard ;-) Usually, she has 2 hours of dance on Tues and 1 on Thurs. Now she has 2 on Tues, 2 on Thurs, 1 on Sat and 2 on Sunday afternoon. In addition to doubling her dance hours, she also started P.E. at the end of January. She's gone from 3 hours of directed physical activity a week to 11 hours. Yay! (note to self: buy more groceries). Also, because I spend more time watching during exam preparation, I have more knitting time. I am getting some serious knitting time in on my Philosopher's Wool Sweater. I have high hopes that it will be done by next March in time for Expo. I've been saying that for 3 years (4 years?), but maybe this time. . .

Piano Adjudications are a big deal, too, but although piano is a challenge for Punkin, it's challenging because she's really good at it. She'll be playing 2 really well-prepared pieces for Adjudications (a Benda Sonatina, and an Etude by Nakata) and then playing the same two pieces for the Chapter Honors Competition a week later. This will be her first time playing in the "playoffs," and it's more like a warm-up competition for her. The students who win will be HS age and playing incredibly advanced literature. I'm excited to have her play, because lots of my piano teaching colleagues will be hearing her for the first time. (No pressure, honey! Luckily, she doesn't read my blog--I think.)

This year, for the first time, Dance Exams and Piano Adjudications don't overlap. This is a great relief for me. One year, Punkin played her adjudications with her hair still in a bun from her dance exams (they cement those buns in--she needed a full shower to get that gunk out of her hair).

So that's what's happening in my neck of the woods. We have a school break the week of Presidents' day, so I'm looking forward to getting a few things off my to-do list that week. Usually, "sleep until noon" is the only thing that Punkin and I accomplish, but small goals are good ;-)

History Made

Today, I watched history in the making. I love watching spectacle. I enjoy watching people marching in; I like watching the support people (especially the Secret Service); I like the order and majesty of it all; I like to see what everyone's wearing, especially when it's 17 degrees outside and they have to stand there for a while--how to stay warm while looking chic and dressy. I love the parade and the moment when the new president and his wife get out of the limo (watch the Secret Service guys!) and walk down the street.

Today, I loved the speech and the historical significance. I enjoyed watching the first daughters sit through the ceremony. I loved seeing Itzak Perlman and Yo-yo Ma play together. I didn't recognize the clarinetist or the pianist, but they were great. Yay, John Williams!

I still made it to my class, but all my lessons cancelled, so I had nothing to do but vicariously take part in a ceremony all the way across the continent.

Today, history was made, and I participated in my own way. My list will still be there tomorrow.