Flesh, Blood and Fire

Not necessarily in that order.

The other day I wanted the kids to make notebooks for the Ancient History class we're doing. Sluggie, having other plans was less than enthused, so like any mom, I tried to come up with a way to make it fun. As we all know, fire makes EVERYTHING more interesting, so we did this.

(Fishy used one of the Blems to make a scroll)


I heart how they came out.


For those of you with kids old enough to shed teeth, you will be able to share in my delight at Prawnie's loss of a dangler. You know, one of those teeth that's gotten to the point where it's horribly askew, but it just won't let go. Sluggie and Prawn were playing the in the basement yesterday and all of a sudden I heard raucous laughter. Then Prawn came up, looking like this: (squeamish people should scroll past quickly)


Sluggie had accidentally smashed the tooth out of Prawn's face with her hand. I say "accidentally" but I know how much that dangler was bugging Sluggie, because I heard her trying all kinds of ways to cajole Prawn into yanking it out or letting her do so herself. So I kind of wonder. Anyway, it's out, so hallelujah for that! I found this next pic on the camera just this morning. I'm assuming Sluggie took it. You can see the new tooth already. (No that's not blood on Prawn's fingernails. :-) )

And finally, after 6 yrs I went to the doctor for a complete physical. The good news is that my pulse and blood pressure and pap smear and all that junk were great. The bad news is that I have high cholesterol. (genetic, I guess) The urf news is that I have to get my first mammogram. I thought I got to wait until I was 40, but I guess they recommend them earlier now. At least it should be blogworthy.

So in the week that I've known about my cholesterol, I've been making dietary changes. The big bonus is that the extra pounds I've been wanting to shed have been falling off, so hooray for that!

I totally forgot to ask about this random dark patch, though. I noticed it a month or so ago. One of my friends has some a lot like it on her cheeks and says hers are "age spots." Is that what this is? It's not a spot I missed with sunscreen because it's been there too long. I completely forgot to ask the doctor about it. It's not scary or anything, I'm just curious. I guess it's kinda hard to see in the pic, but it's kinda hard to see in real life, too. Oh, and please ignore my racing stripes. If you look closely, you can see part of my pussy in this picture. (the orange one >^_^<)

Geekery

This is just a random geekiness post. You may experience turbulence as it jumps rather abruptly from topic to topic. Please fasten your seatbelt.



When we lived in CA, I started a tradition of blowing up as many balloons as possible and trying to fill a room with them, then letting the kids frolic. This started on Sluggie's third birthday, when MuNKi was out of the country on her special day. With just the four of us (me and 3 kids aged 5 and under) I was feeling a little bummed, and not "festive" enough, so voila: Balloonorama was born. We've missed a birthday or two here and there, but I think the tradition has been re-revived. All I can say is that whoever invented the air compressor is my hero! ^_^ (I used to have to do these all by lung.) There are at least 4 kids in this picture. Maybe more.

We're going through a massive Star Trek phase here. When I learned that Pfaltzgraff had made some Enterprise dishes, I was totally geeked up. Then I saw the price tag: $300.00. Um, no. Thank goodness for eBay! 10% of that was much more reasonable. We use these every day. The kids take turns with the cup ("Tea, Earl Grey, hot") and share the plates. I need to find more! :)

And speaking of being geeked up about stuff, I tried Paper Piecing for the first time yesterday. Here's what I made:


I started with something simple, but I can see a lot more of this happening. In fact, I'm off to look for Star Trek and LOTR piecing patterns now. ^_^ I love the web!

The Six Word Memoir Meme

Nothing I could write would be a poignant as Hemingway's 6 word story, which, as legend has it was "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." IMO that's his most brilliant work. (To be honest, I haven't liked any of his wordier stuff.) But since I was tagged by the lovely Claire, I'll give it a crack.

Here goes.

*clears throat*

*cracks knuckles*

*gets sidetracked and cleans the fridge*

(You know, if that was shorter, that would sum up my writing process.)

~~Disgustingly happy family junkie loves creating~~


Oh look! A chicken! (hey that could be another one for me, and only 4 words cuz I might get distracted after that. . .)

Captain Chaos

Wow. I've been sewing lately (!) and tonight I was trolling blogs for fun baby gift ideas. You would not believe how many beautiful crafty-type blogs are out there. Or maybe you would. They all have these gorgeous pictures of their amazing creations (with all those yummy, pricey fabrics I've seen online but always considered to be a "you can look but not touch" item), and everything is clean and orderly. There are great tutorials, and I found some really inspiring stuff. I also thought, "Wow! I should declutter my life, declutter my blog, get everything in order and live like that, with fresh huckleberries and organic milk and crocheted antimacassars (OK I didn't really think that part right there) and beeswax candles and stuff."

But you know what? That's just not me. I'm not an orderly person. My mind is always whirling, my house is never, EVER perfect (and sometimes it's a LOOOOOONG way from even decent), I usually have too many irons in the fire, and I'm running on a budget with no room for organic milk or designer fabrics. (Or else I just blow it all on books.) I do have a weakness for beeswax, though. ;-)

The more I think about it, the more like my dad I realise I am. He always had tons of ideas and projects and some of them never came to fruition, but he was always enthusiastic about all of them. And you know what else? I'm OK with that.

So, no, I'm not going to be decluttering my blog, or very likely my life, even though I really do admire - and yes envy - those women who can. And I'm still going to post like a chicken with ADHD, because that's who I am. So there.

In that vein, I shall switch tracks completely and post pics of our Dec 1st adventure which I mentioned, and then never came back to. ^_^

So there was this lovely little celebration in our town. I don't know what it was called, but they had reindeer for the kids to check out and Santa, and caroling, and carriage rides, and once it got dark there was a parade. I took the kids after sparring and lunch and we found the line for the carriage rides close to quitting time. So close, in fact, that I was pretty sure we'd be the last ones, if indeed we made it at all. Sure enough, we didn't make the last ride, but were given the option of riding the carriage to where the horse trailer was parked if we didn't mind walking back. The woman driving the carriage jokingly added something about helping them push the carriage into the trailer after they got the horse taken care of, and when we got there, I saw that she really didn't have any help. It was just her and a 15 or 16 year old girl, neither very big, a horse, and a heavy carriage that needed to be pushed up a ramp. So we offered to really help, and I'm so glad we did. :) I almost hate to say it for fear of changing our luck, but somehow we always fall into awesome situations like this where we get to really talk to the people handling the animals at the bird shows (all by ourselves after everyone else is gone), or help pack the hot air balloon that landed down the street back into its basket, or brush the horse, and push the carriage into the trailer.

Chaotic or not, life is good. :)


Festive Scarf Horse


Tess and her 2 people and (heavy) carriage


Sluggie does not impress Tess


Tess makes an impression on Mollusc


Brushing Tess -- shortly before she swung her back end around and knocked all the kids over like dominoes! ^_^

Deep Thoughts

So I'm at the library, making judicious use of my enforced computer/writing time by checking my Scrabulous games, putting books on hold and blogging. Just now, I tried to put an audio recording of The Wee Free Men on hold, but the system didn't allow it. (Some libraries are selfish bastards and won't share with ours.) The computer popped up a screen informing me "Hold Not Allowed" and presented me with only one option: the OK button. But it is most definitely Not OK that they are a collection of selfish bastards who won't share with me when I Really, Really Want to hear this book. Honestly, what am I supposed to do? Push the OK button, even though it's Not OK? Throw a screaming hissy on the library floor? Navigate away and blog about it?

Also, when a math problem works out to something like "7= (-156)" isn't that technically a paradox? And aren't paradoxes rather earth-shattering events? They were in every Dr. Who episode I every saw. Imagine my surprise to find us all still here.

Wednesday Eve Again

Holy Wednesday approacheth! Huzzah! I think BG and I get to play together tomorrow, which is always fun as long as we don't get arrested.

Today I sewed patches on for a lot of the day, but I'm making $$, and I also used the time to listen to Deception Point by Dan Brown, which I got on CD at Borders for $5.99. It's getting very intriguing. :) I also made cookies that are freaking delicious!! I'll try not to be such a lazy ass and perhaps post the recipe tomorrow. It involves chocolate chips and espresso powder. What's not to like?

A friend of mine gave me his new Thos Covenant book to read today, which is awesome, cuz at the price it's selling for, no way was I going to buy it. He got it from a friend as a thank you for some very Samaritan stuff he did. :) Then I found out that another person we know has read them. I'm up to 3 real live people I know who have read those books. And my friend knows 2 others. So that may about cover everyone who's ever heard of them. Wait. I think Trundling Grunt may have read them, too. Our general consensus, though, is that Donaldson DID use a thesaurus for many of his word choices. Especially since he uses some of them improperly. Fortunately, in the 20 years between the last trilogy and this, he seems to have lost most of his thesaurus. Not that I mind learning new words or anything, but it gets old looking stuff up every few pages only to find out that the author didn't even use it properly.

I've been thinking lately about how a lot of the new music I like has rather banal lyrics (though every now and then Nickleback comes out with something clever -- OK well at least once) and then I realised that's because EVERYTHING has lame lyrics compared to Peter Gabriel and Sting. Maybe I need to broaden my horizons more. What to you listen to that really makes you go "Hey! That was brainy!"??

A Very Dirk Gently Sort of Life

I don't mean that I bill people for trips to Jamaica when I'm supposed to be looking for their cats, or that I routinely find disembodied heads slowly revolving on turntables. I just mean that my life is always filled with odd little coincidences that are all interrelated.

And now, some completely unrelated random moments:

My children want to write a fan letter to Sean Bean that says "Dear Mr. Bean (even at this they cackle wildly),

Please have lots of children and name them Green, String, Kidney, Wax, Scarlet Runner, and Garbanzo."

This slays them.

They can't decide whether it's funnier to refer to him as Shon Bon or Seen Been.

* * *

I love the film Tomb Raider and am embarrassed to admit it.

* * *

I wrote a scene in my novel only to find that I had already written the exact same scene about 40 pages back and somehow forgotten about it. At least I'm consistent.

* * *

My slimy politician's name has been changed to Leon Sphecter.

* * *

Did you know that there was a Battle of Sphacteria? I bet they could have ended it with a huge antibiotic suppository.

* * *

The Island of Lesbos is said to be covered with over 11 million olive trees. That seems like a lot of trees to me.

I can never hear of the Isle of Lesbos without thinking of Jeff.

* * *

Mollusc has had a major motion picture character named after her.

* * *

Did I post this already?

Smattering

~Prawn on the way home yesterday upon seeing a squished critter in the road: "It could be a dead monkey. . ." I think this was said in a self-comforting way as she is a fan of most critters, but not so much of monkeys, between the story of Mama (that's me) being attacked by monkeys, and the whole undead monkey thing in POTC. Before you gasp in horror, understand that we FF through all the creepy parts. This has the added benefit of making it a MUCH shorter film. ^_^

~CDs I got from the library: Echo and the Bunnymen, Nickelback, some Celtic stuff, Nelly Furtado, a Sting one I actually don't own (the 9/11 one), Inigo Montoya Mandy Patinkin (mostly because I had no clue he sang), Depeche Mode, a couple of Lenny Kravitzes, and a sound effects disc for the kids to play with.

DVDs I got from the library: Joyeux Noël; The Avengers (there's a movie of this??); Porco Rosso; Marie Antoinette; Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte Des Loups); Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. . .and Spring; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress; Arsenic and Old Lace; Danger UXB (used to watch this with my mom and was totally in love with Anthony Andrews); Firefly (saw the movie, but never the show); Alex & Emma; Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and some Chinese and French kid stuff. Yeah, there is no way I'll ever get to all of them, but now I can choose stuff as the mood strikes me. ^_^ And I can renew most of them a few times. Hey, who can resist when they're free?

~Quotes we tend to use a lot from children's books:

"Odd said Mabel. Very odd."

"Marmalade does not want the wooly worm."

"See the snow. See the snow come down."

Mishmash

I'm doing the chicken-with-its-head-cut-off thing this week. After I teach this morning, I'll likely be getting ready for our big garage sale until class and sparring tonight. We're making good headway, but I wish we had another week or two. But since we're doing this in conjunction with some other families in the sub and they're putting out the big sign, we're trying to take advantage of the higher traffic.

I took what I think were some interesting birth photos last night, so I'll try to share those soon.

In the meantime, please discuss the most random things you can dredge up. ^_^

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu$%!!

There will be swearing. You have been warned. I've been a potty-fingers all week anyway. If you don't like swearing, now is the time to turn back. Well, after the next 2 paragraphs, more accurately.

Weird night at TKD. I was ranking student except for the Master's wife, who tends to hang out at the back due to ankle injuries, so I was appointed to do warm-ups. Then, after kicks, the Master had me lead everyone in forms while he took the 3 noobs to teach one-on-one (OK one-on-three.) OK THAT is a new one. I goggled at his wife for a moment and she was all "Don't look at ME!" LOL. So I led forms with a walkthrough for everyone for the first times through, and then put them on autopilot for the second. Surprisingly I didn't hose anything up. Yay. I guess teaching the Kid Classes has gotten it firmly ingrained in my head. There were only 3 of us staying for sparring, so we figured we'd get sent home, but it turns out he had us work on paddles, which is really fun. He holds the paddles out in different ways - presenting different targets of opportunity - and we have to react appropriately. Hopefully anyway.

Oh, and I got felt up at class. Sluggie is a total kid magnet and she was holding this adorable 2 year old boy with white-blonde hair. He looks so much like Fishy did at that age. And he turned to me and put his hand right on my boob. G (classmate of squeaker prank fame) was just looking all goggle-eyed, which made me laugh, and I told the toddler "you can get awway with that becase you are 2." ^_^

But on to the fuckitivity. Because frick and frack and frig and all that shit is too mild. We get home from TKD and I notice a puddle on the floor in front of the dishwasher. You know what's coming. I open the door and see lotsa water and suds still in there. Not good. I close the door and latch it again and it turns on again. WTF?? It should have been done hours ago. And now it's pumping steam out from somewhere at the top (right about where that flappy black thing I've never seen before is half falling out of the door) and burning the piss out of my hands. (not that my hands are commonly full of piss, but. . .) Shit. (Ok, no, they're not often full of shit either - well, unless I'm putting shit away, but Efo knows that doesn't happen much. ;) )

Why does the timing on these things always have to be so damn bad?

On a totally unrelated note, I have 90 things checked out from the library, 6 holds, and a $0.25 fine. I do love the library.

Unfailing

When I was in 3rd grade I failed art class. (I think I've probably mentioned this before.) It turns out I suck at macrame (because, really, who cares about succeeding at that?) and crocheting. I remember my parents being somewhat befuddled as to how to treat my abject failure at the finer (or perhaps duller) arts. I come from two parents who always did well in school, and with the exception of that big old F, I always did, too. Usually effortlessly. Thankfully, my parents apparently found themselves unable to make a big deal out of it, and even though I thought that perhaps this failure should shame me, I couldn't get it to really bother me because deep down, I knew it just didn't matter.

But in the back of my mind, for almost 30 years now (cringe), I've also felt that, ultimately, I couldn't let the yarn win. So tonight I made my first Granny square. It took several different web pages of instructions, but I did it. And it really wasn't all that hard.




I also uploaded a bunch of pics tonight that I'd been putting off cropping and uploading, so tomorrow should finally be a photo-heavy post.

This afternoon I finished Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (yes, I cried) and I started The Colour of Magic. (My library even has the proper English version -- hooray!) I'm about a third of the way through. It's very amusing. I've bought other Discworld books but then put off reading them for fear of wrecking them by not doing them in the right order. Now I've got my hands on #1 there's no stopping me.

I know that Wednesday is supposed to be Anti-Procrastination Day, but I guess I put it all off until today. ^_^

Chicken-fest

In no particular order:

- I continue to heal. I can sometimes go upstairs one foot after the other! Woo hoo! (this is big)

- I finally got to do class again tonight as best I could.

- The Prawn is, at long last, over a week-long fever (you know - THAT one that's been going around) and is down to just hacking the odd lung out every now and then.

- I made chocolate chip cookies today. (in case being rather more sedentary hasn't been quite bad enough for me)

- The kids and I cleaned out some bookshelves and found some books to get rid of. We also unearthed some real winners that haven't been read for a while. One of them was Thundercake. Patricia Polacco is one of my favourite children's authors, and Thundercake is one of my favourite books of hers. Her stories are doubly entertaining if you happen to be a Michigander (or Michigoose) or a Californian (and of course we have been both), since many of her books deal with her childhood in these states.

- I'm about 2/3 of the way through Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, which, as it turns out, is largely sex and angst with a side of scandal.

- Talking cats amuse me. I have one that says "Hello?" when she's very upset (ie in the car.)

The One Without a Title, Least of All a Clever One

We went to Barnes and Noble today. This is always dangerous. I nearly bought a $26.00 book, but managed to stop myself with thoughts of trying the library first. Sadly, I cannot remember the title. :-P I did, however, succumb to The King in the Window. "For the children." The idea is intriguing, the writing, so far as I saw, is well-done, and I like that there are little bites of French sprinkled throughout. I'm going to start reading it to the kids at bedtime, since we are still working through the Pure Dead____ books in the morning (alternating with a history book, and thus drawing things out.)

I tried to find a decent picture book for the Prawn, but the sad fact is that all that seems to come out in the picture book realm these days is tripe. There are plenty of and then. . . and then. . . and then. . . books, and more than enough it was like a banana but moldy and green, I learned with surprise that the thing was my spleen books (OK, well, even that is more creative than what I saw today,) but nothing in the way of depth or beauty; nothing I could be prevailed upon to read even twice (or once!) let alone a hundred times. I know, I know, "Stop whingeing and get off your butt and make some good ones!" you say. And you're right. As much as I loathe the submission process, I need to suck it up and launch some more of my babies out there into the cold, harsh world of uncaring publishing houses once again. But the cynical side of me -- the part I try to keep locked in the small, dark compartment under my lower left rib (though this part requires, with increasing frequency, bribery in the form of chocolate and baked goods in order to stay put) -- says that this predominantly television-dependent age consists largely (though not completely) of parents who don't want picturesque and meaningful; who prefer something they can read with three quarters of their brains tied behind their backs and in the minimum possible time. I suspect that they desire books that will never present a word that calls for a moment's pause for explanation, books that are composed of trite rhymes (or almost-but-not-quite rhymes) and splashed with garish, unrealistic stick-figure drawings.

Clearly I need more chocolate.

On that note, I was looking for an appropriate dessert recipe to try today. MuNKi speculated that vanilla cupcakes might be nice, but was met by a resounding chorus of disgust. (Clearly, I've taught my children well.) So I pulled out my Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook (purchased at one of those "fill a bag for $2" library sales -- mine once beonged to "Rosemary" which I take as a good sign) and began thumbing through it for the first time. Much to my interest and amusement, I've found a Libby's label with a pumpkin pie recipe, an old strip of check stub (the kind from those big ledger-style business checks) with some ingredients listed on it, and an old (I almost said ancient, but it's not quite that) Farmington Community Library bookmark/information strip explaining the new barcode system in very comforting and reassuring terms. ("We call it the Zebra.") Section headers are printed in an amazingly nerdy computer font. Oooooohhhh! Obviously, all this is designed to disguise the fact that the system is Satanic.

I obviously got sidetracked by all that. Now I'm going to look for an actual recipe. I suppose a fool would be approriate, but I doubt that's going to happen. I'll let you know if I find anything else of interest, like recipes from the 1800s or pressed flowers/pickles/lapdogs.

How the Snow Doth Blow

The morning started off with sleet which has progressed on to sideways-blowing fat flakes of snow. Fishy and Prawn have a bit of a cold, so we're staying home from class this morning.

Emmett has a new trick. When I'm showering, or right after I get out, he gets up in the window and rubs the fog away with his front paws so he can look out the hole. He'll also lick it off. We suspect he's an idiot savant. Actually, the opposite of an idiot savant, because he's smart about absolutely everything except for opening a cupboard he's gone into. If the cupboard door swings shut, he'll dig at it and push it and bang, bang, bang it, but won't just step forward and walk out. What a goofball.

Trilly's morning routine is to come rub on my wet legs as soon as I exit the shower, and to lick and nibble my toes.

Hopefully it will be a writing day today, in between all the house-maintainting and homeschooling. And then we'll see about those pics. :)

Spam Spam Spam Spam Eggs Spam Spam

I have gotten 5 spams since turning off word verification. :-P They're all from film schools. ^_^


Random stuff:

I started a poetry blog. Still trepidatious about sharing poetry, but now I have.

I got a new cookbook.

On Wednesday I finished Dragonfly in Amber, which REALLY picked up toward the end, and then I had to dash to the library 15 mins before closing and grab Voyager (the next in the Outlander series.)

I finished The Shakespeare Code and submitted my review.

I watched The Heart of Me. I don't really recommend it unless you're in the mood for something depressing with a slightly uplifting ending.

I learned that a darling little boy I sometimes teach at TKD has most likely come out of remission from Leukemia. If you are the praying or sending positive thoughts into the cosmos type, please do so for Ryan.

"Everyone's Irish Tonight"

More fame for my lovely sister by way of NPR. Looks like the audio for the whole interview will be available later today, but 3 of the songs from their new CD are already available there. My favourite is Ellas Mari.

MuNKi made more fantabulous bread yesterday. Pics to follow.

My stomach muscles are sore because I decided it was finally time to get serious about those push ups and sit ups for black belt testing. I did the 150 sit ups yesterday and again today. As for push ups, I could only manage 70 yesterday without fear of my arms giving way and my beak getting smashed on the floor. And today I only pulled off 50.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. I dropped MuNKi at the house of friends so he could help with painting while I taught kids' class. There wasn't supposed to be any sparring, but 2 of the kids' parents didn't see the sign, so I was stuck there for another hour, but it was OK because we ended up playing dodgeball, soccer, and all kinds of made-up games while we waited for the parents. Then it was off to help with the painting while our kids all played together. It's a very fun and sociable thing helping to paint someone's house (interior) and we had a great time.

Today it's off to Ann Arbor to check out what is said to be the largest Chinese grocery store around here. I hope to return home with strange and interesting finds. And plenty of Haw treats. I was going to say that the Haw Flakes packaging hasn't changed since I was a kid in Hong Kong. That was true as of the last time I bought some (last summer maybe) but I see in this WikiLink that it finally has. Most of the Chinese stuff still has the same package it did when I was little, which I love, because it makes everything so easy to find. And of course there's the nostalgia factor. Here in the States, packaging seems to be different every time you go back to the store.

This leads me to slight rant about the constantly changing styles of women's shoes and clothing. Over the last 15 years at least, MuNKi has been able to buy the exact same tennis shoes every time they wear out. But when I find something I like, by the time they wear out (about 3 years later usually - I'm not a big shoe-wearer) the old style is nowhere to be found and I have to start all over again looking for womething that feels right. Same goes for jeans and even undies. Not fair, say I. I know, I know. Life isn't fair; the Fair's in July. But still. . .

And on the subject of shoes, Mollusc has decided to enter a 5K run-walk to help support our local library and she wants me to enter with her. Much as I loathe distance running, this will be very good for us because it's in June, so getting ready for this should help us both in our black belt testing in August. I realise that to a serious runner 5K hardly qualifies as any sort of distance, but trust me, to this sprinter it's a big deal. ^_^
****Edit****

As of 1:30 Eastern, Navan's article is the #1 most emailed story from NPR!

Keeping Mum

GuTTer MuNKi and I watched this on Wednedsay night and enjoyed it thoroughly. Though it's not the knee-slapping, tear-streaming sort of funny, it's that lovely chuckling with the occasional explosive HA! sort of funny, which I love. Except that it hurts to laugh because something inside my chest gave way 2 Tuesdays ago during sparring. But that may have gotten kicked back into alignment last night, because this morning it seems to be quite a lot better. In which case, I may have to watch the movie again. ^_^

I got Big Fish at the library yesterday. Has anyone seen it? One of the TKD dads (with whom I trade book titles - we have similar tates) said it was good, so I figured I'd check it out. I also got The Heart of Me, and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Oh, and I have Serenity waiting in the wings. The beauty of getting films at the library is that you can pick a bunch of different stuff to watch depending on your mood, and if you never get around to watching some of them, it doesn't matter since they're free!

I was awoken this morning by what sounded like someone banging on the neighbour's roof, and was immediately reminded of Logo. I looked out the window to see what was going on, but what that shocking spectre was, I'm not saying. ^_^