Potential

There are a couple of things pending in our little family right now, don't want to talk about them, but all good. We shall see...

Camp was lovely, I have a slideshow up on my work website, so come over and visit if you've a mind to. Very cute kids, very nice surroundings.

And just to make sure I never recover, we're going to the Fair tomorrow!

Peace.

Camping

A mixed weekend, some fun, some not so fun, but overall okay. Glad we don't have any big events until Halloween!

Managed to work on secret project some while I was gone, that's good.

I'm sure I will have more brain cells tomorrow or Tuesday. I'm going to bed now.

Wednesday is our family trip to the L.A. County Fair, so I had better get some sleep while the gettin' is good!

Peace.

And we're off!

To camp for the first time in 2 years (our usual camp was damaged in the Station Fire last fall so we had to cancel)!

Very exciting!

I will be leading a Nature Photography workshop so I hope for some wildlife. We will be having lots of fun and not cooking until Sunday, yay!

See you when we get back!

And have a great time in Maine, Mom and D!!

Peace.

Finishing!

Finished my socks-in-progress (since I don't know when last winter) last night.

Finished my blue handspun sweater.

Ripped out slipper--HUGE even for felting, it was a good 3 inches longer than it should have been, weighed 4 ounces and I ran out of the first ball of yarn. Will wear accidentally felted socks from Sock Madness at camp, no worries.

Had the thought the other day, "I really need an orange sweater." Then remembered I have an orange sweater that only needs half a sleeve. That's up next!

Then secret knitting for the hols.

Still no photos, ho hum.

Peace.

Migraine

That is all.

Reality TV Update (spoilers)

We have started letting the kids watch our favorite reality shows with us, which leads to a lot of "never say that word" and "really, never say that word" but they aren't words they've never heard so wev.

Worst part is they all air after their bedtime on school nights so we have to record them and watch later, rather than watch as soon as we get home from wherever we were ("Survivor" used to be after church choir, but seems to have moved to Wednesdays).

So last night we watched the Survivor: Nicaragua premiere and the latest episode of Project Runway.

• This season of designers is decidedly NOT fabulous. No one has made anything truly exciting or beautiful and Peach was the nicest one and she's gone. Ho hum.
• Always listen to Tim. Always. If Tim gave my advice about anything, I would take it.
• Of course someone named Wendy went first. This would undoubtedly be my fate as well, so depressing to be first. And she was a goat farmer, come on!
• We can't even watch the Top Chef Finale tonight as DH is working.
• Darn kids!

Of course, if we didn't like this stuff, it wouldn't matter. I can hardly wait for Amazing Race!

Peace.

Apparently I am old enough

To get all excited at the arrival of my online progressive bifocals. I can knit and watch TV without my contacts in! I can read without taking off my glasses! No one can tell!

Of course, DH does not like the frames, but there weren't a lot of choices for progressives and no budget for more.

I love them!

Peace.

What is the deal with children?

We were driving to school this morning, playing a silly game and laughing and then of course someone had to pinch and someone else had to slap and it was all over and Mommy was mad.

Sheesh!

Peace.

Our Screenplay

"Forsaken", a spaghetti western/horror feature written by my husband Jeffrey and me has made the Finals of the 2010 Page International Screenwriting Competition!!

OMG!!

Congratulations, Sweetheart!!

Sweater finished

Smaller than the last one, when I make this again, I will make a medium. Pix later (need a shower).

DD has a cold, but went to school, she's a trouper.

DS has picture day today and I forgot until 5:30am and so he had to take a shower this morning, too. But we made it everywhere, even with lunch from home.

Morning off today and then DD will take the bus up to my office for the first time (if she remembers we talked about it last night). I hate it when we make a plan and then I don't remind them in the morning. The school office is going to think I'm a "helicopter parent" but I don't want her to freak out if no one comes to pick her up. And I forgot to give her her phone. Which I will drop off later. Sheesh.

On to spinning some Wensleydale singles for new slippers before camp next weekend!

Oh, and Christine O'Donnell is a nutjob, just saying. Go Dems!

Peace.

Almost done!

With replacing a lost handknit sweater with a new handspun one of the same pattern, seriously 8 long rows and a bind off and that baby is on! I love seamless knitting, can you tell?

Pictures tomorrow sometime.

And I've proven that this sweater can be knit from 20 ounces of wool so I could theoretically spin up a more multicolored version out of 5 bumps of anything I want in the stash. Mm, singles...

Work has quieted down, planning for camp next weekend.

Teaching the Girl Scout Troop to crochet this Saturday, maybe someone will get the fiber bug, you never know!

Off to Middle School Back-to-School Night and GATE parent meeting, good times.

Peace.

Remembering 9/11

I just read the story of a guy who survived, who tried to help and did help in a tangible way, taking an Orthodox Jewish woman home to Brooklyn. And it brought back some of the feelings I had even from the West Coast.

I was home with my 5-week old son and his 2 year old sister, my husband had been listening on the radio to Howard Stern and came out to tell me that the first Tower had collapsed. My first thought was that there was some sort of terrible structural problem. Then we turned on the TV. And didn't turn it off for days. We were watching when the second Tower came down. We were watching it over and over and over. What I remembered so vividly tonight is all the people who had lost someone wandering around downtown with pictures of their loved ones, "Have you seen this woman?" "Have you seen my son?"

We all waited breathlessly, stunned, for someone, anyone, to come out, to be rescued, to be found alive under all that rubble. For someone to show up at a hospital hurt but alive. For one of those lost to be found. But we were disappointed.

That Friday we had a special church service where I sing and I stood and sang "America, the Beautiful." To this day, when I get to that last verse I cannot help but tear up, no matter where, no matter when.

It is hard to let our dream of America be "undimmed by human tears" when we think of this terrible tragedy that happened to all of us, some more than others. But we must. We must continue to be a country of laws, a country of tolerance and acceptance, a country of love and diversity. A country of true freedom and liberty based on our Constitution.

Oh, beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years.

Thine alabaster cities' gleam undimmed by human tears.

America, America, God mend thine every flaw.

Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law.

Peace.

Today is the Day!

Huge event at work, hope it all goes well for everyone!!

Peace.

A Parenting Question

So today I went in to the Middle School to help with teaching choir parts. DD seemed okay with it (and I was really trying not to be embarrassing or anything) until the Altos came back in with the teacher, at which point I was finished. Then she just shut down and got angry. Don't know if it was at me as I couldn't get her to say anything to me, or if someone was nasty to her or something. Now I have to wait the whole day to find out what happened and maybe I did something wrong (in the mind of the tween).

I feel like it's important to be present at school, to show her that I'm involved and I care about what's going on, to be helpful in ways that might lead her to better parts when she's older, too.

But if she really doesn't want me there because it causes social weirdness, what's the best call? I feel like being present is important, kind of whether she likes it or not, but I don't want to make middle school more difficult for her, it's hard enough. Are my memories of horrible middle school showing?

Any advice appreciated!

Peace.

Thursday Bullet Post

• Survived Wednesday, exhausted. Feel like I worked, fell asleep and am going straight back to work.
• This is not true, since I almost finished Sleeve #2 on my sweater last night so I couldn't have been asleep.
• Less than 72 hours till big work event is over. I am not the only one who will be relieved!
• Have to go to work 3 different times today. But two of them are pretty much all fun!
• DH's car was much less expensive to fix than we thought and was finished the same day, yay!
• Ants are still terrible.
• I think I have enough yarn to finish my sweater. Which means I will dye, spin and knit another one in a different color after my holiday knitting is done.

Peace.

What day is it?

Oh, yeah, these three-day weekends throw me off, plus our schedule totally changes this week, as I have said.

DD went to Ballet class for the first time since she was about 5 yesterday and came home tired and stretched out, but I think that will go well. And she got a good though small role in "Bye, Bye, Birdie" at school which will be lots of fun for all of them, I think.

DS did okay on his math test, but could do better. Should do so today.

I was supposed to start teaching classes at my job today but not enough people registered for them to pay me so ho hum. More time to do regular work is good anyway. And we're starting a Knitting Club in support of a new Prayer Shawl Ministry so I get to knit at work, yay! Will start a Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl for that purpose in some yarn kindly given to me by a church member cleaning out her stash. Good repurposing, yes?

Imogen is coming along but no new photos. Finished sleeve 1, started sleeve 2. Would be wearing it today, so better stay on top of it! Next up: new slippers from felted handspun before going camping.

Yes, felting handspun is decadent. But I don't know what else to do with Wensleydale that I like the colors of and I love slippers.

DH's car broke down yesterday so we're rather dreading the call from the mechanic. How much to spend on a car that old, blah, blah, blah. Any free cars the universe wants to offer up (it usually does for some reason) would be greatly appreciated! OTOH, I missed my dental appointment, which is both good (for the five-year-old in my head) and bad (for the grownup), but it wasn't an emergency or anything.

Peace to you on this cool, foggy, lovely day!

Guess I took a day off blogging, too

But it was nice!

We went to see the Special Edition Avatar 3-D (we had seen it before in 2-D) and it is just beautiful and the added footage is a plus, not gratuitous at all. I could watch that movie many more times, and will eventually.

Did a little work just to get something done before today's wasted time in a meeting. Not wasted so much as less productive?

Today it hits the fan, though.

Work, then dentist (me, blech), then dinner, Liturgical Dance Team practice and Ballet Class and then home to bed. We find out about the School Play audition results for DD and last week's test results for DS.

I won't have time to breathe again until Thursday, if then. We have a big event at work on Saturday for which I will have to practice on Thursday and help on Friday (my day off) not to mention work on Saturday at least 9-6. I shall clutch at moments of peace where they fall.

May they fall upon me frequently!

And you.

Taking a 3-day weekend

In a 24/7 business.

Well, not really 24/7, but sort of on-call 24/7.

I'm taking my holiday. Regardless of imminent enormous logistically chaotic event's rapid approach. Regardless of rumors of my non-involvement running rampant. Regardless of my own preparedness for my own portion of said event's woefulness.

I'm taking Labor Day off.

We're going to see "Avatar" again in 3-D!

OMG, Knitting content!!! I'm working on a handspun Imogen to replace my Malabrigo one that went missing:

And the knitting so far:

Peace.

A Very Smart Person agrees with me

Robert Reich:

If there was ever a time for bold government action it is precisely now. Obama should be storming the country, demanding the largest responses to the jobs emergency in history. He and the Dems should be giving Republicans hell for their indifference to all this.

Read the whole thing.

Peace.

Don't make a sound!

9-year-old just turned off the TV on Saturday morning to READ.

Move along, nothing to see here...

Peace.

Trying not to get beaten down

But if I have to keep hearing about how wimpy and demoralized and scared and off-message Democrats are right before the voting in an election about how unhappy and angry and freaked out everyone is, I will lose my mind.

I'm a member of the disaffected, and they should never have lost me. I used to be out there cheering them on.

We need, still, political leaders who will stand up for what is RIGHT, stand up for the CONSTITUTION and the RULE OF LAW. Leaders who stop worrying about getting reelected and make the country BETTER.

I get that they can't do anything if they get voted out. But for God's sake, you're about to be voted out anyway! What the hell, why don't you take some chances?

If the Left doesn't get the messaging out there that the Right ruined everything and we're about to hand it all back to them and go into a Depression (of every sort), it will be as bad as it ever was in short order.

Peace.

I'm going to count this as yesterday

Since I fell asleep rather unexpectedly (by me, not by my family)!

A little warning of what's coming, though. Next week we start all of our extracurricular activities: Tap on Mondays (and rehearsal possibly), Ballet and Skateboarding on Tuesdays, Choir on Wednesdays (and teaching for me), Drawing on Thursdays, Choir on Fridays, Irish Dance on Saturdays. That's not including Scouts (both) or Baseball (after Christmas).

This is the first year I will drop something if we can't handle it. And Drawing and Skateboarding are short and sweet.

I'm glad we have the long weekend (and I have today off) first!

Peace.

Kicking off!

This is the real start day for my decision to blog every day. Wish me luck!

Work was better yesterday, thank goodness. Heard an interesting story, got a lot of work done, daughter's audition went well, son seems to have made up a conflict with a friend. Now if only I could get something done on my work website...

Peace.